


St. Sebastian's Home for Boys

by Caladrius



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, But the end will be worth it, Despair, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I swear., Kisses, Love, M/M, Stolen Kisses, boy's school, power, psycho alois, real angels, real demons, triggers for pretty much everything you got
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-15 14:23:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 102,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4610052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caladrius/pseuds/Caladrius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two orphans meet in a home for boys in Victorian England.  Alois works desperately to save the haughty Ciel he loves from the demonic headmaster's attentions...</p><p>Is there any hope? Can the children really defeat this monster alone or will a saintly guardian come to their aid?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Deal With the Devil

**Author's Note:**

> This is the story of the same name first published on fanfic.net. I'm dragging it out and bringing it here for three  
> reasons: 1. I like the capabilities and readability of AO3 more. 2. I wanted to edit some things and make the story more readable. 3. I want to try to finish it someday before everyone forgets this fandom forever. I'll be posting chapters to this as I edit them.
> 
> If you are a first time reader, FAIR WARNING: This fic is not for the faint of heart-- It hurts. It bleeds. And it will tear open wounds if you have similar wounds. The scope of this story is much wider than the manga or anime: The horrors are more horrific, but the tenderness is also more pure. I promise you this much, the story has hope at its core and a message: Praying for help and expecting demons and angels to save you will do far less for your situation then getting the courage to stand up for yourself. NOTHING starts unless YOU start it.
> 
> Oh, and this story is also about love.
> 
> Please don't judge me too harshly. At the end of Season 2, I needed Ciel and Alois to understand each other and they didn't there, but I wave my magic fanfiction wand and....

**St. Sebastian's Home for Boys**

Chapter 1: "A Deal With the Devil"

 _From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both: but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved_.

-Niccolo Machiavelli  _The Prince_

* * *

 

Engraved in the lintel over the doors of the stately red-brick edifice somewhere in Britain is  _St. Sebastian's Home for Boys est. 1776._

It is a monstrous building that is fading slightly, window panes cracking, whitewash peeling, but other than this in fairly good shape. The two adjoining buildings are newer by comparison- more modern, with bright red bricks and clear windows through which pale candlelight glows by night in the dormitories.

Between the two newer buildings on two faces and the immense building as the front is a green courtyard. In the summer the boys play football and tag on the grounds and make snowmen in the winter. In the fall they fly a kite or two over the north building.

In the center of the courtyard is a statue of the home's namesake, St. Sebastian, the first martyr. His head is raised imploringly to the sky, body riddled with arrows. His arms are tied behind him to a post. The viewer is at once struck by the macabre choice: a martyr as a victim rather than a conqueror in form--not wielding a sword, not free to lift his hands to The Almighty.

* * *

 

**One rare, sunny day**

Beneath this austere and almost fearful statue sits a young boy. His age is difficult to approximate: he is small in stature, but he is concentrating upon a book in his hands. The boy's charcoal-gray hair is longish and falls into his face, especially over a black eye patch covering his right eye. He is wearing the orphanage's uniform: an unremarkable tweed-tan shorts and blazer over a white oxford shirt buttoned to the neck. He wears knee socks and a worn pair of leather shoes. His solitary blue eye follows the line of text back and forth, hungrily devouring the words he has hungrily devoured for two years. He licks his forefinger and uses it to turn the page. Thus, he spends three hours of his afternoon with his favorite book: Niccolo Machiavelli's  _The Prince_.

From a clear window in the north building another boy watches him. This boy is taller, his skin has seen slightly more sun, and he has a stronger physique under his uniform. His white oxford shirt is unbuttoned at the collar and his socks slump to his ankles from his own exercise in and out of the building. His hands upon the glass leave prints as he hungrily devours the view of the boy sitting under that macabre statue. He watches his own breath play out in a foggy patch on the glass, obscuring his view. Biting his lower lip, he leaves.

* * *

 

**Two days later…**

The boy sits under the statue, but he has slid the precious book into his blazer pocket to protect it. Three boys are laughing at him. One of them makes a remark and throws a stone at the boy who takes it on the shoulder and says nothing. The other two boys seem incensed or possibly fascinated. They also pick up stones and begin to hurl them at the prideful one who will not shield himself from their blows or wince in pain as they land on his cheek and his knee. The jeers become more insistent, but the boy with the charcoal hair stares at them with a venom that, if literal and not figurative, would kill them all on the spot. Two of the boys are visibly unnerved by it. Their leader, however, grits his teeth and balls his fist. He will have his reaction if he must fall under the shadow of that fearful statue and touch that cursed creature.

A blond head streaks from the north building like a bullet from a gun. Before the two crony boys can warn the other, the boy with the unkempt socks leaps upon him, bearing him to the ground. With extreme efficiency he punches the larger boy he now straddles once, twice. After the second blow he grabs the antagonist's lapels and draws himself towards the bloody lip.

"Robert…" he breathes, "No, no. Sticks and stones will break bones, and so will my fist to your nose." The blond boy smiles wickedly and tilts his head. "It's not a perfect poem, but I think you get my subtle irony and symbolism, right?"

The larger boy tries to spit blood in his face, but the blond boy leans left, dodges it, and then puts both hands over the bully's mouth and nose and seems content to wait for his adversary to begin to flop from lack of oxygen. The other two boys are terrified. They run away.

"Enough." The boy with the blue eye sits like Caesar over the proceedings. He does not put his hand in the thumbs-up position, but his command gets the blond boys' attention. "He isn't worth it."

Mollified by the insult to his attacker, the blond boy is able to release the bully with dignity. He takes his hands away while his victim gasps and sputters, and then the victor runs his tongue down his hand, lapping up the blood left behind.

"Bastard!" says the brutish boy insultingly.

"Actually, no. Surprisingly, no," the blond boy answers, lightly getting to his feet with a giggle. He waits for the larger boy to make another move, but he doesn't. The attacker gives the other two a glare meant to be intimidating but only turns out to be quite nervous. He cuts his losses and runs back to the north building.

When the blond boy turns around to receive his thanks he finds that the other boy has pulled the book from his pocket and has taken it up again as if he had never been interrupted.

"Hey," he begins, darting to the bench, claiming a place beside the diminutive scholar. "Why did you do that? Why did you let them do that?"

"What a ridiculous question. As if I could fight back and maintain my dignity." He doesn't lift his eyes.

His voice is very pure. It has a note of royalty in it. The blond boy is enraptured by the sound of it now that he hears directed at him.

"But they come here and harass you every third day," he complains, "and they threw stones," he tries to lean up to touch a tiny red mark on the other boy's cheek but he pulls away.

"I'm fine. I don't require your help in any capacity. Now, if you don't mind…"

The blond boy's eyes crease at the bridge of his nose. "What is that book that you like so much anyway?"

The boy with the eye patch sighs. "It's a manual. Once I have it completely memorized and understood I'll be able to leave here."

Was this a purposefully cryptic remark? The blond boy purses his lips. "I can't read. Does that mean I'll have to stay here forever when you get a chance to go? I've just gotten to like you."

At this the boy stops reading. He turns for the first time to his bench mate and takes a very close look at him. "You make no sense to me. You don't know me."

"That's not true!" the blond boy says brightly, excited that he has gotten attention. He leans forward on the bench. "Your name is Ciel. You came to St. Sebastian's when you were 10. You are 13-years-old now. You like bread pudding with raisin sauce, and you eat almost nothing else which is why you are so thin and small."

Ciel's eyes narrow, but the boy continues. "You have three reading places: the storage closet on the third floor (when you are being particularly unsociable), the dormitory (but only when it rains), and under the haunted statue of St. Sebastian in the courtyard. Your parents were killed in fire and you don't have a right eye because you gave it to the devil."

Ciel sighs softly. There is a hitch of pain in it, and the blond boy regrets the last part of the gossip immediately when he reopens the book.

"Wait…" he puts his hand on the page, drawing a cold look. "I'm sorry. It’s just that I've been watching you."

"Why?"

"Because," the blond boy is suddenly afraid to go on. He knows he needs to answer, but his words don't always make the right impression; he tends to speak  _while_  he thinks. "Because by trying to be invisible, you stand out to me." He thinks this is okay. It's the truth anyway, but he leaves out the part about the feeling he has whenever he sees him. A feeling that he might…understand certain things.

Ciel appears to accept this answer. He has replaced the cool mask and tries to see through the hand on his page. "If you can tell I am trying to be invisible, then let me be invisible."

"No."

Ciel is controlling his temper. He puts his hand over the blond boy's, grasps his wrist firmly, and moves it off of his page. "Despite what the rumors say, there is absolutely no benefit in becoming acquainted with me. Everyone here either hates me or fears me, and they will give you a hard time."

"I heard the rumors, and I think that makes you very very interesting," The blond boy smiles and rubs his shoulder against Ciel's who shies from the touch.

"If I dispel the rumors will you leave me alone?" Ciel continues heedless of the answer. "I didn't give my eye to the devil; I lost it in the fire that killed my parents. I didn't trade it for power, as you’ve no doubt heard. I have no desire to deal with people who may one day become my pawns. I have no desire to continue this conversation with you."

"Wait, wait!" The blond boy grabs Ciel's arm as the other boy stands to go. "There is the rumor that you get special treatment from the headmaster. You don't bathe with everyone else. The headmaster gives you private tutoring in French and all kinds of special attention. What about that?"

Ciel turns to the new antagonist who draws back at the mask of complete composure. There is no trace of annoyance. There is no trace of anger. There is no trace of a soul to speak of as he says quietly, "Headmaster Faustus is free to do whatever he wishes as he is not only the headmaster, but a chief benefactor of this institution. It is through his benevolence that a former prostitute named 'Alois' (probably not even his real name) who was remanded to the state has the opportunity to eat three square meals a day, wear clean clothes, and receive an education."

Alois' jaw drops open. His blue eyes grow wide and he jumps to his feet. Much to Ciel's surprise, the blond boy's arms fly around his neck in a sincere embrace.

"What the—" his eye blinks and the mask falls away.

"You know about me? You even knew my name? You really do know!" Alois giggles and pulls away to enjoy the look on Ciel's face. "Then you must have thought I was a little bit interesting, right? To know so much."

Ciel reaches his hands up and pushes the taller boy away. "No. I don't speak to others. My eyesight is faulty, but my ears work just fine."

"Oh~~" Alois says. Not satisfied with the response he takes the cuff of Ciel's blazer in both hands and leans in conspiratorially, "then tell me something about the boy who was throwing stones at you."

Ciel balks. He pulls his sleeve free and begins to head towards the north building as he says, "he's an idiot and a bully."

"He's been here longer than you have, Ciel." Alois calls, a thrill coursing through him at the confirmation of his hopes: not everyone deserved Ciel's attention, but somehow Alois did. In his joy he also offers, "He's also got a crush on you, though he is terrified of you."

Ciel stops. He turns his head and his eye is bewildered. "That is preposterous. You are making that up," he declares.

"No, I'm not," Alois asserts darkly. "I heard him bragging to some other boys in the bath that he's going to pounce on you when you are asleep and completely molest you."

Ciel stiffens. He is clearly contemplating this and his face pales.

Alois wants to smack his head off of St. Sebastian's marble knee for the  _faux pas._  It was all true, every word, but he shouldn't have said it like this. He was caught up in the moment remembering how after hearing the statement he had wanted to smile casually, get out of his tub, and drown the bastard for speaking of this pale angel with such irreverence.

"Ciel, Ciel," he closes the gap between them as he sees Ciel's soul disappearing again. He puts both hands on Ciel's cheeks and tilts his head to look him in the eye, "Make a deal with me," he breathes. "Make a deal with me. Robert is afraid of me now. I can protect you…"

Ciel's blue eye focuses. He smacks the hands away. "Leave me alone. I don't need you. I don't need anyone."

He is so thin and small, his face is so determined, his shoulders tremble. There's a bruise forming on his cheek from the thrown stone. He dares Alois to say something with his eye and his posture to prove that he is no weakling.

A door opens but the two boys do not hear it, lost in each other, willing the other to speak and end this agony.

"Ciel."

Ciel blinks and becomes a blank canvas.

Alois looks up. From the double doors at the rear of the main building stands the headmaster.

* * *

 

The headmaster, Lord Claude Faustus, is an important, impeccably-dressed man. His yellow eyes behind a clear wall of glass spectacles survey the boys at the statue with the slightest hint of displeasure. He detests that statue and calculates for the six hundred and sixty-sixth time how much it would cost to pull it down. Ciel sits beneath it to mock him, he knows this.

_St. Sebastian is watching you…_

The boy had said it in such a way, with his head turned to glare behind him, his blue eye fiery in a 11-year-old's body. How ripe the nape of that neck, and when Claude Faustus had bitten it, what a lovely sound he made.

Now there were no complaints, only perfect obedience, except for the damn statue that waited to embrace  _his_  Ciel. He spent hours beneath its disgusting frame to cleverly remind Claude of his many many sins against him and against God. It was his own way of raising a hand to slap him in the face when he had no prayer of it in his physically-frail condition.

It needed to rain tomorrow. Perhaps he would tell the school master that Ciel's asthma was acting up again and tie him to a chair and read his beloved Machiavelli to him all afternoon, read it in his own composed monotone and figuratively slap him back.

It was a petty thing, but it was so enjoyable. It was not enough that Claude have that flesh in his hands; he must find the soul he hid, carve it out, and savor the taste of his defeat. It would happen. It was a matter of time. Only a matter of time.

"Ciel, it is time for your French lesson," he calls, and he knows Ciel will come. He must smile a little as he watches the boy turn from the taller, newer boy, and walk towards him.

"Of course, headmaster," Ciel says icily. "But I haven't had a chance to practice my vowels since our last session. Please go easy on me."

Ahh, the game. Claude Faustus loves Ciel's game. When he is biting back tears later Claude will remind him that  _he_  wanted to play.

"Tsk, tsk," Claude replies smoothly, "'spare the rod and spoil the child.'" His inner smile becomes an outer smile. He does not notice Alois watching him carefully, listening carefully.

* * *

 

Alois feels the pain in his heart well up. He knows, then, what he suspected from the beginning. He knows he is right. Watching Ciel's straight back as he walks to his doom sends a shudder of impotent anger and sadness through his body. He wants to reach out and stop that door from closing with such finality upon the pair as they disappear inside, the headmaster towering over his prey. The silhouettes: tall man, young boy, large hand dropping too casually to the small shoulder, too intimately. Ciel's eternally stiff posture, the rumors, that cold cold mask sheltering and protecting any vestiges of a heart still remaining…Alois sees it all. He remembers a young blond boy and countless tall men. He remembers the barrier he made and how, sometimes, it crumbles away revealing…nothing. A hollow child's chest where a bright red heart and soul used to live. Alois falls to the ground and in the shadow of St. Sebastian he weeps because  _he understands._

* * *

 

**Three days later…**

The door to the storage closet on the third floor of the north build flies open and Ciel is momentarily stunned.

"Hide me!" Alois begs, his arms full of white cloth that Ciel cannot immediately discern because his heart is beating so fast.

"What?"

Alois is looks around desperately. "I crept into the laundry room and stole all of Cook's britches," he laughs, pausing to hold out one very large white undergarment as a victory display.

In spite of himself, Ciel's jaw drops open and he gapes.

"Why did you…"

"Why wouldn't I? She's too stingy, isn't she? And overcooks  _every_ thing! But she caught me as I was grabbing the last one, and I had to run. Please!"

Ciel's lips part and close. There are heavy footfalls outside drawing nearer. He makes a sudden decision.

"There," he points. A pile of old drop cloths from the window-whitewashing of last year lay in a heap on the floor in a corner.

Alois' delinquent mind grasps the situation completely in a glance. He "ahs!" and dives towards the pile, wriggling under it like a caterpillar in August though the concrete floor is cold to the touch.

Ciel moves finally. He climbs over, pulling drop cloths down around Alois' rear, his face flushing at the entire situation. "You're mad."

"Yes!" comes a muffled reply of giggles.

The door flies open just as Ciel sits back with his book in his hand, feigning complete innocence. Cook's broad body and one of the groundskeepers fill the frame. The cook is sweating profusely, veins popping out on her forehead as she looks around.

"Eh? Ciel? Wut are you doin' here then?" her voice squawks. Ciel tries not to wince.

"This is where I sometimes read. Have I done…something wrong?" he asks, holding the book to his chest.

Cook sniffs as if she can locate the offensive boy or her undergarments by smell alone. "''Ave you seen the new blond boy? He'd 'ave an armload of…laundry."

Ciel looks genuinely surprised at such a question. He frowns slightly, shrugs, and shakes his head. "No. no one."

He is believable and the room looks otherwise devoid of life. Cook  _hmphs_  and stalks out after another few second's perusal.

When the door closes there is a measure of six heartbeats. Finally Ciel says, "she's gone." As the lump of white drop cloths move and a body emerges, Ciel shakes his head and murmurs, "I don't know why I helped you."

"I do," Alois says happily as his head pops free. He smiles with the drop cloths framing his face like a nun's habit. "You'd rather let me win then let her win."

Ciel snorts at this. "Win?"

"It's all a huge game, don't you see?" Alois slides free and lets his armload of laundry fall around his feet while he crouches next to the mountain of dropcloths. "You decide to do something, and if you can accomplish that thing, then you have won."

"That sounds like the philosophy of a child," Ciel goes back to his book.

"Hello, Ciel, we  _are_  children!" he crawls on his hands and knees to the other boy and pokes him in his soft cheek, causing Ciel to swat at the annoyance and turn away.

"Leave now. The coast should be clear."

Alois takes a deep breath. He is not going to win all at once in this game, but he is making progress.

"Next time, then."

"And why should I?"

"Because you have nothing to lose." Alois' voice is soft. He wants to nuzzle in that charcoal-colored hair and gently wrap his arms around that slight frame and tell him over and over,  _let me help you. I know, I_  know!

Ciel is silent.

"Didn't that guy that wrote that book say, 'it is better to be rash than timid'?"

Ciel turns to him quickly, astonished.

Alois holds up his hands placating. "I just asked the schoolmaster about some things, that's all. It's a good policy, you know. What am I saying, of course you know!" he bonks his head with the heel of his hand, enjoying the look of grudging dismay the illiterate boy was now receiving from the literate boy.

"Next time. It’ll be fun!"

* * *

 

**4 days later…**

Ciel is alone in the boy's dormitory. The other boys are at dinner where they should be and he is here with himself and his impotence and his self-loathing and his hate and his pain. He had eaten something at lunch, but his "French Lesson" had gone very long and he had no appetite even for bread pudding with rum sauce even if he could have some which, now, he cannot.

He had bathed already, but it was never enough. The headmaster sent him back so that he could be in bed by lights out, and now he has to change into his bedclothes and pretend to be the padded, indulged favorite. Pretend he had dined sumptuously with the headmaster and let them wonder about his private bath time which no one else received.

Private bath times were a necessity, he thinks coldly, with a body that looked like his. Colored bruises, cuts, bite marks on his stomach, his thighs, his collarbone. What would the others make of that, he wondered for the six hundred and sixty-sixth time? What would they all do if he one day simply took off his shirt and showed them?

They would look upon him as a weak, pathetic creature worthy of either pity or hate.

Ciel shudders and thinks he might allow himself a tear. One tear, only one. It had been miraculously sunny for four days. He had been sitting in St. Sebastian's cool and benevolent shadow for four days. He had tolerated the Alois' boy's inane and strange conversation about London Johns and vaudeville shows and the amount of alcohol one could buy for a greasy quid in the right places. The filth Alois proudly claimed seemed piled up high enough to eclipse his own. Almost.

He bites his tongue to distract him from the pain elsewhere and pulls off the uniform shirt he had had to put back on after his bath to make his way back here.

So lost is he in his thoughts that he doesn't realize he isn't alone until he hears the gasp.

He pulls the cloth to his chest and turns around, his heart sliding into his foot, body shaking on the verge of falling.

He has in his hand a bowl containing the smell of bread pudding with raisin sauce.

"It’s…your favorite.”  He swallows. “They said…they said you eat earlier sometimes…but I couldn't be sure you would get this unless I fed it to you." Alois’ voice catches in his throat at the end. He had seen Ciel's back. All of it. Devastation sets in.  _I don't know if I can save him!_

"Go away! I'm not…hungry." Ciel doesn't know what to do. Should he escape? Where was he going to go? What an incredibly perfect moment, to be seen like this in all of his glory by the prostitute he had treated with such disdain when Ciel knew he was worse. So much worse!

"No. I guess not." Alois feels so calm right now. He sets the bowl on a bedside stand. Maybe he should go. Ciel will hate him for seeing him like this. He will hate him for knowing even though he has suspected since the third day he was here and he's known with complete assurance for nine days. And the more he watches Ciel, the more he feels homicidal urges to break and destroy and perhaps shove a knife into someone's skull. But the other boys appear to have sensed his demeanor because they give him a wide berth now and never came close to Ciel.

Alois feels Ciel watching him, trying to sound his depths, learn what he knows. The blond boy says nothing. He looks up at the shivering boy huddled behind the meagre curtain of his shirt.

Their eyes meet.

_I know._

_He knows._

Alois turns and walks out silently. When he gets to the door the tears flood his eyes. It is times like these that the barrier crumbles away and Alois' red heart and soul are still there, hanging on by a thread, but twisted…hurt. Feeling another's hurt…Ciel's hurt. Ciel had, without a word, with barely a glance, had gotten inside the barrier. And because he was inside he was protected…but nothing and no one else would be. Alois decides he is going to go to the storage room on the third floor which bears Ciel's scent, and he is going to break something. Maybe a few things. Maybe he will find a boy to break into two pieces, who knows? He does know that if he can't hold that frail body to stop it from shaking then he must destroy everything else in the universe.

* * *

 

**Later that night…**

The new moon casts her darkness over the dormitory of 16 beds. Ciel's eyes are open. He is staring at the small crack in the ceiling that looks like a spider. Its imperfect pattern revolves from one central water mark; the "legs" of warped paint proceed to mar the white perfection. He hates this spider because the more he watches it in the darkness the more it looks like it is  _moving_  in the darkness, crawling around to stalk him, to tempt him, to suck the life and soul from him.

His thoughts drift back to the fateful meeting a few hours earlier. In the morning it will all change. He will not be able to look at Alois. He must cut him off completely for his own sake. He was stupid to believe that he could play games, could indulge such annoying conversation, could…enjoy anything at all about anyone or anything in this place that was hell.

The headmaster had told him tonight, amid obscene kisses on his chest, that he had arranged for the statue of St. Sebastian to be pulled down in a week. That he had no less than seven days with his precious "patron saint" left. First Alois and then St. Sebastian. When the statue was gone there would be no place left to hide, no solace ever again anywhere within his reach.

The headmaster suckled Ciel's pinky toe with great relish that night, giving the distinct impression that his total consumption of anything Ciel had left to hide had begun. The bites, the caresses, the pain, the endless hours drew back through Ciel's memory like a twisted, blackened version of one of Alois’ vaudeville show stories. Somewhere inside his heart was pumping red blood directly into that monster's mouth and he was greedily licking it up, leaving nothing but a hollow shell behind.

Ciel feels the will bleeding from his body.

 _He only wants me to give in_ , he thinks.  _If I bow down to him, if I tilt my head up and ask for it, he will grow so tired of me. He won't find me delicious. If I cry out that I want him instead of bite my lip and hold it back, he'll think me a poor diversion. If I let go of my pride, if I just let it go…_

The image of St. Sebastian toppling over and shattering into a million pieces in the courtyard causes such a shudder of deep, true sadness to grip him that he moans in anguish. The destruction of the first martyr will herald the symbolic end to his denial.

 _It was always_  his  _game to start with. I never had a piece. I never had a single thing to begin with. Let him win. What will it matter now?_

The face suddenly blocking out the spider above him causes Ciel's heart to falter.

_Alois!_

They stare at each other even though it is nearly impossible to see clearly.

"I'm not leaving," Alois whispers.

"What…are you talking about. You can't be out of bed." Ciel feels his heart pounding in his ears.

"And yet, funny. Here I am."

Ciel feels the cold sheets suss around him and he is taken aback by the figure crawling into the bed with him.

"What the hell are you doing?" He is stunned and raises an arm to push him out when suddenly he is being held in a very close, very tight embrace.

Alois' breath is unique. How did Ciel not realize that it was so unique? It is sweet, a little, and it feathers his hair as he lays in shocked stillness, the warmth of the other body pressing to him.

For several minutes they say nothing to each other. There is no need for words. Alois' hands are gentle. These hands that belong to a prostitute at age 13 are the gentlest hands Ciel can clearly remember: they want nothing, but they give everything. The kisses being gently laid on his forehead are not repulsive or thick with ulterior motives; they are what they are.

And they are healing him.

The boy with the blue eye slowly, very tentatively, reaches a hand out to willingly close this gap. What is the façade of pride now? What is the loss from this? On the verge of his complete despair two hands are reaching out to hold him up.

"Hey, Ciel," Alois says lightly, lips brushing his ear, "I'll be your power. Move me. Use me. If you understand and memorize me, we'll leave here together because I want you and I can't leave you alone. Make a deal with me, Ciel. Make a deal with  _me_."

Ciel sighs. When he feels Alois' lips, he closes his eyes and pulls the other boy's head to his.

_To be continued_


	2. Feeding the Wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The statue of St. Sebastian in the courtyard has a secret, and Alois has a plan to save Ciel's soul...
> 
> WARNING: triggers for rape

**St. Sebastian's Home for Boys**

Chapter 2: Feeding the Wolves

* * *

 

" _Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared. "_

-Niccolo Machiavelli,  _The Prince_

* * *

 

**Two days later…**

The rain is coming down in buckets. It had been beautiful weather for a week, a rarity in England this time of the year, but now the sunshine has truly disappeared. Ciel stands at the window in the dormitory, alone, and stares out at the statue of St. Sebastian in the courtyard. The gray background is fitting for the image of the martyr: upturned face, painful expression, droplets like tears running from his cold, dead, stone cheeks.

The headmaster said that in seven days he would pull down his saint. That was two days ago when the sun was shining, and the Headmaster has not been back since. Rainy days, however, put Ciel in the most danger; they keep him from sitting beneath the statue, and he cannot not rely on the countenance of the saint to ward off the demon that haunts his flesh and his dreams. Now it is morning and the rest of the boys have gone on to breakfast and then to studies. Ciel has skipped breakfast because he is feeling sick to his stomach, a situation brought on by the change in weather and a familiar dread.

He will come today. There is no denying this fact.

Ciel trembles and tries to find some semblance of calm. It was one thing to have to endure the Headmaster's torture before, but now Ciel knows that every day he comes until the end of this nightmare he will gloat his victory over St. Sebastian.

 _Help me!_ He says to the statue standing lonely, abandoned by the mortals in this weather.  _I have listened for you, I have watched for you, but you do nothing!_

The rain splatters against the pane, increasing in volume until, like a cruel prank of Mother Nature, the image of the statue is washed away in a watery haze. Ciel feels his chest ache and he leans his head against the glass. It is cold on his fingers, this barrier. Cold like the skin of  _his_  hands all over his body. Cold, cold, cold.

_Like my grave…_

Impotently, Ciel slams a fist against the glass, briefly hoping it will shatter, perhaps sever an artery and let him be done with it. It isn't like he hadn't considered it in the past, but he is as afraid of death with its marble coldness, its never-ending rain.

The glass doesn't break. Ciel is unsurprised; he is so  _weak_  under his façade of strength. He is the very definition of "sham" and he hates himself for it. Somewhere, Headmaster Faustus is smiling, considering his day, perhaps preparing something special to celebrate the return of the rain…

 _If you don't help me,_  he thinks silently at the statue,  _then I refuse to believe in God, and demons are the only things that exist in this world._

"I'm going to jump you from behind."

The voice is low, purposefully so, but Ciel is startled nevertheless and turns just in time to have arms flung around his neck as he is pushed back into the window. He manages to avoid a total collision only because Alois' hand is suddenly there, shielding his head.

"Oops. Was that too exuberant? I did warn you," he laughs, pressing his forehead to Ciel's with a smile.

Ciel gasps a little. After being alone for so long, the intrusion of another into his thoughts and his personal space is…very strange.

"You skipped breakfast? How’re you supposed to grow? You need to eat, dammit."

"I'm fine," Ciel protests shakily.

"Hmmm. No. Dr. Alois says no, Ciel. Porridge is the stuff of legends. It makes fucking heroes, honestly. And you need to be where I am because when you’re gone…"

Alois frowns.  _When you are gone, I get nervous,_  he thinks. Ciel hasn't let Alois back into his bed for cuddling the last two nights, but he hasn't been exactly cold. There is a slight hairline crack in there, in his mask of pure indifference, but Ciel's face is pale and that means he is thinking too much.

Spontaneously, Alois leans in and plants an overly-friendly kiss on Ciel's chilly cheek.

Ciel blinks and shakes himself. He gets his arms between them and pushes Alois away. "Stop pawing at me constantly," he says, getting a little distance, his one good eye narrowing dangerously at his attacker. Alois thinks it's the first sign of life today.

"Ohh~? Why?" He puts his hands on his hips in a mock pout. "You weren't so standoffish the other night," he reminds him mischievously, leaning in. "In fact, if I recall correctly…"

Ciel colors at this and Alois thinks he might die on the spot.

"I told you, I was…having a bad day."

The blond boy laughs musically as Ciel's frown deepens. "A bad day? You’re always having a 'bad day'. That's the point, silly-silly Ciel," he sing-songs, pleased with his alliteration.

Ciel shakes his head as if witnessing the ranting of a lunatic and turns back to the glass. The rain has let up enough for the vision of the martyr to swim back into view.

There is silence for several seconds. Ciel thinks it might be a record for the impulsive boy who eventually asks the inevitable question.

"Ciel, what is with you and that statue?"

Ciel says nothing but his shoulders slump.

Alois frowns and pushes just a little. "The rumor is that the headmaster is getting it pulled down."

"Yes."

Alois looks into the window and can see Ciel's expression clearly in the reflection, though he suspects the other boy has no idea. His one blue eye is so wistful it makes Alois swallow a lump of sympathetic pain in his throat. The fact that he offers nothing else by way of explanation is maddening.

"That's St. Sebastian, the patron saint of this place, right? I heard that statue is haunted," his voice takes on a conspiratorial quality as he leans down, resting his chin on Ciel's shoulder to half-whisper into the other boy's ear. To his great dismay, Ciel neither pushes him away nor scoffingly refutes such a preposterous notion.

Bolstered by this unspoken encouragement, he continues. "Some of the other boys said that the statue moves by itself. That it changes positions if you look at it from the corner of your eye. That it sometimes disappears completely in the middle of the night. It's all very creepy. No one goes near it if they can, and I mean, he does kind of have a…freaky look about him if you understand me. Hey, hey, Ciel. Do you believe those stories?" Alois pokes his cheek insistently, but the other boy does not take the bait.

Ciel says nothing, but inside he knows the truth…

The statue _is_ haunted. And he was once a witness. His mind travels back to that night two years ago when he stumbled into the dormitory late one night, the first night of hell.

* * *

 

He was in shock. Ciel was in shock and pain. His limbs moved woodenly and he hit his feet several times on various things. His clothing was half unbuttoned because it had been put on him so hastily, so carelessly, so caustically, by hands that had just done the most unspeakable things to him that he wondered at his sanity.

And then a spasm of pain in his lower back reminded him that he was broken somewhere and he doubled over. His bed was very very very far away. He hated the feeling of cold on his feet; it was possibly the worst feeling in the world. Just about. Where had his shoes gone? They must still be in  _there_ , in the hell he had been sucked into and just as unceremoniously, deposited from.

When had things gone so out of control? He only wanted to learn French. Had he been too eager a pupil? Had he…had he somehow…caused this himself? He had been very polite, very attentive, and very studious. He wanted to make a good impression on the headmaster. He wanted to be…yes, he wanted to be a little special. Wasn't it natural to want to distinguish one's self from everyone else, especially in a place like an orphanage where all identities were lost? But when his arms were pinioned behind him and that breath was on his neck…

Ciel felt bile rise into his throat. He concentrated on not. Throwing. Up. If he had been sick it would have woken everyone up. They all would see him, see the hidden, horrible things…

Ciel dragged himself forward to his bed and tripped again, this time the momentum carrying him to the window. How he managed to stop himself so quietly, he didn't know-a strong willpower perhaps, but he did. Hands braced against the window sill, he painfully raised his head and glimpsed the courtyard under a full moon.

The statue of St. Sebastian was illuminated by the cold light, and it was staring straight at Ciel.

Ciel felt a cold shudder of something other than pain shoot down his spine as his blue eye was entirely capture by a stony visage. That statue, with the upturned face of agony, was now tilted, obviously tilted, obviously looking at him, agony gone. Instead the martyr's stony expression was…mild. Almost…benevolent. Kind.

_What…the…hell?_

Ciel swallowed and the pain left him immediately in his surprise. He slowly stood up straight, blinking a few times in case he was seeing things unclearly.

St. Sebastian, the statue, was looking at him.

Ciel couldn't remember how long he stood there trying tiny experiments to see if his brain was messing with him in its state of trauma: he held his breath, he turned around and looked back, he pressed his face to the window, he waited…

_I see you._

That's the message Ciel felt rather than heard. "I see you."

Ciel was a learned boy for his age. He loved to read, and he knew about St. Sebastian who converted several people to Christianity in the third century after Christ, who had to be martyred not once, but twice, because he wouldn't die the first time…

 _Are you trying to convert me?_  he asked silently, all thoughts of his shattered innocence left behind in the wake of this miracle.  _If you want to convert me, then help me. Help me!_

He remembered nothing else except waking in his bed the next morning in his night shirt. He had no recollection of how it had gotten on him unless he had done it in his sleep. Regardless, the statue of St. Sebastian was as it had been forever: eyes upturned, face of agony…

That was when he had first grasped a hope.

* * *

 

"It is haunted," Ciel says finally, turning from the window and heading for the door.

"Wha? It is? You think so? Why?" Alois is intrigued but Ciel will not share. He believes, but he will not share. It's both infuriating and mysterious. He has fallen so hard for this boy! "Where are you going?"

" _We_ are going to class," Ciel announces on his way to the door, feeling the warm presence of the enthusiastic boy at his back.

"Awww, no, Ciel. No fun!" Alois wraps his arms around Ciel from behind and impulsively kisses Ciel on the back of his neck.

" _Don’t touch me!_ " Ciel's shout is the sound of falling marbles in a tiny room lined with steel: harsh, unexpected, very loud.

Alois lets go as if he has been burned, and truthfully the simile is not far off.

Ciel trembles; he balls his hands into fists at his side and bows his head.

The blond-haired boy feels his heart pounding and carefully and quickly, moves out from the offending position.

"Not…not from behind," Ciel says very quietly. "I…didn't mean to…yell." His voice is barely controlled, but he raises his face, a cracking mask against an avalanche of despair. "It's…it's…just…"

Alois isn't going to hear the explanation. He knows, of course. What an idiot he is! "Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers," he says loudly to cover anything Ciel might say that could cause the entire house of cards to come falling down. "And damn, a 'peter', a 'piper', and a 'pecker' all in the same line? It's pretty much the best thing ever, isn't it?" he croons slyly, taking Ciel's new dumbfounded expression as the evidence of a successful diversion and makes the most of it as he sidles up to him, from the front this time.

"Hey, Ciel, let's ditch those lessons. I don't get to be with you anyway because I have the reading power of a limp dick, less probably, and they put me in a room with babies. Almost-babies," he complains plaintively, reaching his hands around Ciel's waist, clasping his fingers at the small of the other boys' back to keep him from sliding away. "Let's just wander up to that third floor storage room and have some Machiavelli time, you and I, okay?" Alois' voice is honeyed and his breath sweet (stolen candies?)

Ciel makes a face and vies for control of his personal space with his hands on Alois' chest. "No. If we don't show up, they will look for us, and that place is not exactly a state secret. Besides, you must learn to read if you want to be anything other than a whore when you leave here."

Alois sighs inside. When Ciel talks like this…it is hard not to just...to just…pounce upon him, snuggle him senseless...possibly beyond senseless.

"Don't give me that look, you freak," Ciel's hands manage to get himself free and he stalks out the door with a sigh that does not soundly completely dejected. "Go to class!" he orders from the hallway. Alois smiles and trots along after, pleased to exist in the trail Ciel blazes ahead of him.

* * *

 

It turns out that Ciel didn't see Alois at lunch because the boy had gotten himself in trouble and was kept for the lunch break. Ciel sat in silence eating his liver and onion sandwich, immune to the usual stares and gossip.

By the end of the day, however, he is watching the clock and counting down the minutes. It is ridiculous to think that if he makes it out of this classroom, if he can see Alois back in the dormitory and listen to his complaints about reading with babies for hours, that he will have somehow dodged the bullet that he has been dreading all day.

Five minutes.

Ciel's heart pounds and he tries to look as interested in this book of mathematical computations as the schoolmaster wanted him to look. He attempts the problem for the third time, happy that there are several more boys in the room, all less attentive than he, and who are more likely to become a target for a professor’s ruler before he is. The numbers swirl around on his page. He feels faint with anticipation, with barely contained joy.

 _I will let Alois convince me to go to the storeroom,_  he bargains because it comforts him and helps pass the time.  _I will allow myself to be subjected to his ridiculous affections and his unnecessarily salacious stories of his sordid past._

Ciel breaks the point of his pencil on his paper before he realizes he is sweating…profusely. The seconds tick by like centuries.

The door creaks open.

Ciel's breathing catches in his chest.

"Good afternoon, Headmaster." Mr. Dawson's voice breaks the general silence and Ciel feels his heart, his entire being, sink into the dark mark his lead had made as he ground the blunt end into the negative sign he had constructed a second ago.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Dawson," the quiet, controlled, voice responds.

"I'm surprised the weather didn't keep you away today, sir."

Their casual banter makes the one-eyed boy want to vomit all over his page of half-solved problems.

"If rain was the sole deterrent of business and learning, then Britain would still be living in the Stone Age, don't you agree?"

An acceding chuckle.

"Quite the contrary,” the hated voice continues, “I enjoy the rain. I find it builds character."

Ciel looks up. He has no choice. To say something like that, for him to let that simply go…

Mr. Claude Faustus' yellow eyes smile at him behind their veil of glass.

The boy with the charcoal hair looks down at his desk. Woodenly he put his materials and books into their compartment, carefully keeping his mask in place as Mr. Dawson makes some ingratiating comment about the headmaster's charity to take such a personal interest in the further education of an orphan, and didn't Ciel appreciate the opportunity he was given?

Ciel stands and walks to the head of the classroom. Once, so long ago, he discovered that if he kept his eye trained on a forgotten nail embedded into the wall near the ceiling, he could keep his head high as he walked downward into hell. He concentrates on it now, and at the appropriate place he stops, smiles at Mr. Dawson and says, "I am grateful for the French lessons, though, I must admit, the language is starting to wear on me; too many vowels I think."

_I hate you._

"Ahh, but Ciel, you are such a fast and arduous learner. To give up now when you have accomplished so much would be truly regrettable."

_You are mine, and I am not letting you go._

"Then let's be off," Ciel says airily, amazed at his own powers to dissemble. "I was hoping to be done by supper-time tonight."

"Oh dear. In anticipation of your lesson, I had supper prepared for us in advance."

Translation: tonight was going to be….very long.

Ciel's fingers tighten and he looks at Mr. Dawson who is blithely now going on about what is on the menu for everyone else that night. The complete idiocy of the adults in this institution is stunningly ironic.

Headmaster Faustus' hand on his shoulder, like the manipulation of a master puppeteer, steers him out of the classroom.

* * *

 

Ciel keeps his breathing even. It's difficult because he is tied to a chair with his arms pulled behind him, constricting his chest. His wrists are secured with…something. A thin rope of some kind? It bites into his flesh. For the hundredth time he tries to shift his position, if even half an inch, to get some relief, but his legs tied to the legs of the wooden chair make it impossible.

The headmaster's voice is soft and picks up again from behind him where he cannot see. He is reading from Ciel's book,  _The Prince_ :

"'Men ought either to be indulged or utterly destroyed, for if you merely offend them they take vengeance, but if you injure them greatly they are unable to retaliate, so that the injury done to a man ought to be such that vengeance cannot be feared. '"

The captive shivers in the cold. He has mostly gotten over his constant state of undress in this situation, but it does not help him feel any warmer. He must keep his dignity: he must not ask for a respite or a blanket because he knows he will not get them. He will not say "please"; he will not use his voice to betray him.

"I do so enjoy this quote," the Headmaster comments with approval. "Here Machiavelli explains that man is a creature devoted to the pursuit of perceived justice against perceived wrongs. I find it interesting that he states men should be either indulged or utterly destroyed and then continues to give rational for utterly destroying and not an explanation of the benefits of indulging."

A terrible pain shoots down Ciel's arm as his wrists are yanked. Too much silence has elapsed, the boy realizes, and he cries out. It kills Ciel a little inside that he wasn't ready enough for the pain, that he gave that one away so cheaply today of all days.

"And what do you think of this passage, Ciel?" The Headmaster's questions are as level as if they were both clothed and sitting in the school room, and of course, they are not.

"I find it…interesting," he blinks away the involuntary tear of pain in his eye, focusing on the tone of his voice, imagining that he is smashing the bastard in the face with his words. "Interesting that you used the word 'perceived' twice…as if…as if wrongs are simply…wrongs by a certain point of view."

"Hmmm…"

Ciel shudders as he feels the lips on his neck.

"I believe I would like to hear you recite this passage in French, Ciel."

The boy squeezes his eyes shut as two arms snake around him and the chair from behind.

"Please begin."

The charcoal-haired boy goes ramrod straight instinctively, his body, his mind, craving a release from this torment as the hands begin to move across his chest. The urge to scream is so strong, he can feel the need drip from his hairline as sweat. He has no idea what will happen if he screams except that he is almost positive he will never stop once he starts.

Playing this game is hard. So hard! No one witnesses his superior acting skills as he tries to take a breath, tries to ignore the things that are taking him apart from the inside bit by slow bit.

 _My mother was a beautiful woman with blonde hair. She used to read me stories at night, fuss over my clothes and my manners. When I was hurt I could cry in her arms and she would lift me gently. I put my head on her shoulder. She smelled like a flower and white tea and lace. Mother had a soft voice that was pleasant, not grating and full of terrible promise. If she asked me to respond to her in French, I would do my very hardest to please_ her _, wouldn't I?_

He had gotten to the point where he was using the last of his happy memories to mask the evil ones in progress, but it wasn't going to work forever. Ciel knew this. It was only a matter of time before everything that he was became tainted by these hands, that breath in his ear. It was only a matter of time…

His mother's face was fading. It was getting more difficult to make her believable in his mind anymore; was her hair honey-colored or wheat? The shape of her jaw was fuzzy now. But, of course, it made no difference in the long run; that shimmering hair had burned into a foul-smelling cloud of dust, and her jawline without flesh must look so different from the way she had looked in life.

And now he has thoroughly undone himself. The headmaster is going to keep him here, tied to this chair until he has squeezed his soul dry. The comforting supports he has long relied upon are burning…burning…

With horror, he hears himself begin to speak in a voice full of audible despair…

"Les hommes doivent être ou caressés ou écrasés : ils se vengent des injures légères ; ils ne le peuvent quand elles sont très grandes ; d'où il suit que, quand il s'agit d'offenser un homme, il faut le faire de telle manière qu'on ne puisse redouter sa vengeance."

He cannot say it all with one breath, of course, because the headmaster is purposefully making it difficult to concentrate and tugs at his wrist if his vowels are not rounded enough for his taste.

* * *

 

When Ciel collapses into his bed that night he hurts but his mind has gone completely numb. He is so tired and emotionally drained that he forces his brain to do nothing but concentrate on the sound of the other boys' breathing.

He is not Ciel right now; he is a body, and nothing more. He does not own his body, but he can pretend that nothing can hurt it. He can endure anything and everything with dignity forever if he can always walk back to the dormitory at the end with his eyes set and unclouded by tears. He will sleep because his body has to sleep. That is all. When he wakes, the cycle will begin anew.

* * *

 

Alois has been sitting on the edge of his bed in that darkened room for fifteen minutes watching the other boy sleep fitfully. It is almost a relief when he wakes up on his own.

When Ciel didn't return from lessons, Alois became suspicious. Then he had heard from another boy in the class that the headmaster had come to collect him right before they were dismissed and Alois had made the mistake of punching the poor messenger in the face.

It had hurt a little, but in a way the pain was enjoyable. The switching he received was not so bad either, nor was going without supper. None of those little privations compared to the rage seated in his chest: Impotent rage without a more decent, stab-able, punch-able target. At least not if he wanted to be able to stand by Ciel's side and be his power.

Ciel gasps when his eye finds Alois' face over his, but he does not yell. Alois wonders if that is a product of training, and then wants to turn the stabbing blade upon himself for making the connection.

"Shhh," the blond-haired boy whispers, index finger to his lips, "don't say anything, just come with me," he continues, careful to make himself sound perfectly rational even though it is the middle of the night and everyone, including himself, is supposed to be asleep.

"Go back to bed," Ciel responds, unconsciously combing his hair over his damaged eye with his fingers as he struggles with consciousness. "I'm tired and I'm not in the mood."

Alois' eyebrows crease and he feels himself slide down on the mattress to cage Ciel's torso with his own.

"No."

"This is absurd," Ciel tries to push him away. "You'll be caught."

"Not if you come with me right…now," his insistent whisper causes Ciel to turn his head to make sure his neighbor is not waking up.

"Alois, go back to bed. If you get into trouble…"

"I already got the switch tonight once. It's no big deal," something about Ciel's surprised and confused expression warms his heart. "I'll tell you all about it," he promises, grabbing Ciel's hand and tugging.

"Alois."

"Ciel, if you don't agree to come with me right now, I swear to you I will open my mouth as wide as it will go and scream until I wake every person in this fucking place up."

Ciel blinks.

Alois smirks. Oh, he doesn't even try to tell Alois he is bluffing, which is almost the richest part about this; he knows full well he isn't bluffing. In truth, coercing the little love of his life is not exactly what he is going for, but Ciel is a stubborn little brat who doesn't know what is good for him. At all.

"Fine," Ciel sits up and waits for Alois to gleefully and quietly leap off of him. The blond boy picks up the spare blanket he has brought and wraps it around Ciel's tiny frame for warmth. Then he quickly grabs Ciel's pillow and shoves it under the bed's blanket, plumping the lump with expert hands until it resembles a small young man slumbering in its depths.

Ciel stands patiently, curiosity appearing to get the better of him. When Alois grabs his hand, he stumbles and winces.

"My…arms hurt. It's nothing. Get on with it," he whispers testily to Alois' dark expression, clear even in the bleak ambient light from the windows.

Ciel's body is shaking. He holds the blanket around himself wondering what in the name of madness he is doing traipsing the blackened halls of the north building with this impulsive and reckless boy. Every creak, every groan of the floor boards, sends him into a state of such paranoia that he has to stop a few times. Alois is surprisingly patient with him, coaxing him, wrapping his arm around his waist a few times, and giggling.  _Giggling!_

Finally they arrive at a door. Ciel has lost his bearings and tries, in vain, to recognize where they are. That is when Alois gets down on the floor in his nightshirt and brings forth…something. He begins to fiddle with the lock.

"What are you doing?" Ciel whispers, alarmed.

"Breaking and entering, of course. Just shush!"

There is a scraping sound and a tiny, almost imperceptible click as the door opens. Before Ciel can speak again, Alois pulls him through the door and shuts it.

And now the room is revealed, not because the boy with the charcoal hair can see it, but because he can  _smell_  it.

Books. Shelves and shelves of books.

"The library?" he states, grudgingly amazed. Of all the places for this rude, unpredictable,  _illiterate_  boy to break into, he chooses the place with the most books? Ciel thinks of the days he has begged to be given leave to spend a few hours in here, to peruse these shelves of knowledge, to escape onto a treasure island or some other faraway place, and has been told that the headmaster kept it locked for a reason…

"This room is always locked. Always," he says bitterly.

"I know. It makes me all depressed and shit." The flare of sulfur precedes a brilliant golden flame as Alois lights a solitary candle, his amusement now clearly visible.

Ciel gives him a look he hopes the other boy can see. "Why did you bring me to the library?"

Alois leaves the candle on the table and approaches carefully, cautiously. Ciel is intrigued, he can sense it. There is a little life in the eye he can see. The danger, the adrenaline, the drama--he's eating it up one crumb at a time.

"I thought," Alois says smoothly, an irreverent smirk on his lips as he slides his hand to Ciel's warm cheek, "I thought I might seduce you with books…"

The candlelight illuminates two silhouettes that slowly approach and merge into one. Alois initiates, but Ciel only holds his wrist-he doesn't fight it. There is no complaint as the taller blond-haired boy tilts Ciel's cherubic face to deepen the kiss.

His lips and his mouth are just so warm and inviting when just this morning Ciel had felt so cold. Secreted away in the library, watched over by the dusty, timeless sentinels of knowledge and fantasy, Alois thinks that perhaps his mad plan has a chance…

_(to be continued)_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to TheLadyBluebird who translated the Machiavelli passage into French. Thank you so very much!


	3. Silhouette of a Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The library holds hopes, lessons, deep secrets and memories of pain and Pride that cannot be breached.

_Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed._

-Niccolo Machiavelli  _The Prince_

* * *

 

**Chapter 3: Silhouette of a Life**

Surrounded by the collections of sages past, steeped in the comforting smell of old books and in the glow of a candle, Alois kisses Ciel's lips.

It is not a hungry, passion-filled, demanding kiss. It is little more than a brushing of petal-soft lips, moistened, at least on Alois' part, by a split second of nervousness just before he went for it. He can smell Ciel's unique scent so close: the standard bath soap and something a little more—possibly medicated powder. It is so unique, this scent. If Alois were, for whatever reason, tossed into a pitch black room with boys identical to Ciel's height and build, he could find him this way; no one else could have these lips, so hesitant, a little trembling, or this scent.

Alois' hands are riveted to this face, tilting it so gingerly, as if the other boy was a small frightened animal. Ciel's hand on his wrist does nothing but cling to him. When the shiver of absolute joy rushes down Alois' spine he makes a little sound and, smoothly, opens Ciel's mouth for something just a little wetter.

Ciel is shocked. The kiss…that hadn't been unexpected. Alois loved to touch him, to connect to him, almost umbilically sometimes to the slightly older boy's chagrin. And after everything had happened, he was surprisingly okay with this. Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour, or relief from the terror of being caught, or the continued terror of being caught. Alois always smelled like candy or cookies…really, someday he would have to find out why. It was ridiculous to think that Alois was able to eat sweets all day unless he was filching them from the kitchen.

It is somewhere in the middle of that thought that Ciel feels his mouth be slightly parted.

An electric jolt of warmth shakes his soul and sends a spear of heat lancing to his very core. All at once the whole picture swims into view, and, suddenly skittish, Ciel breaks the kiss. He steps away to bring the back of his hand to his mouth. It wasn't the kiss at all that was strange or unpleasant. Just the opposite. It was what it had done inside that had momentarily shocked him. He looks up at Alois, eyes narrowed.

Alois cringes inwardly.  _Aw shit, shit. Too far. I went too far!_

"Alois…" Ciel begins slowly.

Alois bites his lip. Though normally considered a gesture of hesitance, Alois was actually licking every last possible taste of Ciel from them in case he never got to experience it again.

"Ciel, I'm…Okay, I admit that was a little—"

"Alois, I cannot bear your children."

Alois stops abruptly mid-excuse. And blinks.

"Wait…what?"

"I said, I cannot bear your children…because…we are both boys. You know that, right?"

_What…the fuck?_

But no, Ciel's face is set.

Which of course causes Alois to burst into quiet laughter. "What the hell, Ciel? I know how this all works. I mean….I mean honestly…did you think I was  _that_  ignorant?"

Even in the muted glow of the candle Alois can see Ciel blush and look away. "Of course…you'd know that much…I just…had to say…something…to stop you."

Alois wants to fall to the floor laughing, but the image of Ciel, so adorably abashed, with nowhere to run, attempting to compose his thoughts into speech, is too beautiful to miss with his own theatrics.

"Oh, God, Ciel…"

"I'm pretty sure that nothing in the British Empire ever came about by boys…kissing other boys." Ciel lamely attempts to hold onto his dignity despite the growing stupidity of his tactic. He mentally calculates where he is and whether or not he would be able to get back to his bed without rousing the entire household. Considering how shaky his legs are now, the prospects aren't good. That fool…making him feel like…a fool. And just as he is about to consider giving escape a real try, Ciel is suddenly enclosed in a tight hug.

"I'm sorry. You're right. It's totally unproductive. But let's just say I've always been a rebel and a bad influence, and I'm probably going to get us into heaps of trouble. But just forgive me. I mean, I went through a lot of trouble to get us here." He smiles and lets go of Ciel before the other boy becomes too crowded. On a whim he runs behind a high shelf and peeks out from it, the glow of the light just barely hitting his face. "Just imagine we are British spies and we are doing dangerous but necessary dirty work for our beloved queen. Recon in a library behind enemy lines." He disappears behind the shelf, and then reappears again, "and we are carrying on an illicit affair that allows us to combine your intelligence and my brash recklessness in the pursuit of Justice."

Despite the silly image, the phrasing pings hard with Ciel. He looks away darkly. "Justice? There is no such thing…"

Alois slowly approaches and softly takes Ciel's hands. "Come on. See the rest." He grabs the candle and pulls Ciel along to the stacks. Deep inside, tucked between two large shelves of books, is a nest of blankets and pillows already arranged for two. A small stack of books on the ground await them. Ciel pulls the blanket around his shoulders closer.

"Just…how long have you been planning this?"

Alois shrugs. "You know, I didn't just drag you here to uh…compromise the British Empire with unreserved snogging."

Ciel gives him a very bland look, and Alois must keep himself from laughing giddily.

"Alois…"

"Seriously, I did have an ulterior motive, but, you know…not like that. You said that education was the key, right? That without it I'm just going to end up a whore again when I get out of here. And you’re probably right because I really only have a few legal skills. So, I need you to help me." Alois sits down in the right side of the comforter nest and picks up a book. "You know how I’m in that class for babies?"

Ciel nods. He considers the space next to Alois. It is a snug fit, but it is so deep in the library that chances are good if anyone enters for whatever reason, the two would have enough time to douse the light and hide. He decides to take a chance and sits down next to Alois, thigh to thigh, although he wraps himself up in another comforter for warmth and some slight distance. He needs his personal space dearly.

"Well, I'm not a fucking baby, you know? I can't read, but the way that fat guy teaches…God. I’m so bored I do nothing all day but plan shit like this. And since you’re, you know, all fired up about me going to class like a good drone bee, I thought maybe…I could ask you if you would."

Ciel narrows his one good eye. "If I would what?"

Alois tilts his head. "Teach me how to read."

A single blue eye blinks. "Teach you? I don't know how to teach anything."

Alois makes a face. "Come on, how hard could it be? I mean, you already know how to do it, just…like…I don't know…read me interesting shit, not that horrible toddler primer crap, and I'll just…focus…really hard on what you’re doing or something. And, hell, you have no problems telling me what to do. I would do what you told me because…it's you."

Ciel gives Alois an incredulous look. What was it about him that drew this erratic lightning bug to spiral around him? He considers the stack of books. Picking the first one up he examines the title and then raises an eyebrow. "Why, exactly, did you pick these books?"

Alois shrugs. "I liked the covers."

Ciel picks up the next book and the next, all hard-bound in leather with gold gilded edges. "But there is nothing on these covers."

"I know! That's why I picked them." Alois giggles and leans close, hoping to soak up some praise for his distinguishing literary palate. "I figured anything with a picture on the front was a baby's book and therefore uninteresting. Smart call, huh?”

Ciel opens the first book and squints at the tiny words by the light of the candle. It only takes him a few seconds to shake his head and close it. "Not all 'adult' books are interesting, Alois. Most of them are boring, in fact." He climbs to his feet and shrugs off the blankets, self-consciously smoothing his hair over his damaged eye before turning to his kidnapper. "If you are serious about this, then I will find something suitable."

Alois stares at Ciel in the muted light. He is so thin and small without the blanket. Small…

"Hell yes, I am!" It was better than a dream. Ciel was looking for a book for him. Just for him! He had all but agreed to this completely illegal alone-time scheme. Alois might even learn how to read…actually. He hadn't considered that as a possibility, but there was a certain look in that blue eye that said Ciel was taking him seriously. This was the excuse to get closer to that precious heart that he wanted to gnaw on so lovingly. The most perfect excuse.

Ciel disappears into the stacks and returns presently with a book. Alois considers for a moment just how familiar the other boy must have been with this place to be able to choose a book more by feel than sight, as he had left the candle with Alois. As he settles down, the blond-haired boy sees the trembling and casually lifts a blanket back over his shoulders. Ciel wriggles under the extra covers until he resembles a little bean in a pod. He leans back into the shelves behind them, pulling his legs up to support the freshly-fetched tome. Alois looks at the cover. It is also leather-bound but newer than the dusty older books he had pulled. On its cover, stamped into the leather, is what appears to be a crude map with an X on a distinctive location. He tilts his head and looks at Ciel inquisitively.

"God, no. Not geography, pleaaaase."

"Shh!" Ciel cuts him off and Alois closes his mouth. The elder boy points to the words of the title as he reads them. "Treasure Island. By Robert Louis Stevenson." He looks at Alois and speaks in a purely academic tone. "Learning to read is not only beneficial for understanding information, but it also allows you to store up a common experience with others, especially with books. This is a book every boy should read and know because it involves high adventure and pirates, acts of courage, and treasure."

Alois purses his lips and shrugs. "Pirates are just thieves on the ocean. Treasure sounds good, though."

Incredibly, this reaction draws a small smile from the pale boy, and Alois blinks.

"I'm going to read it to you. I think….you might like it…"

"Ciel…" Alois is overcome with reverence.

"Silence! And don't interrupt me when I read. I detest it." He opens to the first page and Alois sits back and leans down, his golden tresses almost on Ciel's shoulder, but not quite. He wants to snuggle into this priceless creature who chose a book to open him to the wide world, but he is afraid of the distance Ciel will create to compensate. He smiles as Ciel puts his finger on the first word and reads.

* * *

 

**An hour later…**

" _I brooded by the hour together over the map, all the details of which I well remembered. Sitting by the fire in the housekeeper's room, I approached that island, in my fancy, from every possible direction; I explored every acre of its surface; I climbed a thousand times to that tall hill they call the Spy-glass, and from the top enjoyed the most wonderful and changing prospects. Sometimes the isle was thick with savages, with whom we fought; sometimes full of dangerous animals that hunted us; but in all my fancies nothing occurred to me so strange and tragic as our actual adventures."_

Alois sighs and Ciel pauses, looking over at him.

Despite Ciel's one order, Alois had interrupted him countless times to ask the meaning of certain words or simply to exclaim over something in the book. At the part where the main character barely escapes from the pirates looking for their dead comrade's stolen belongings, he had been practically in Ciel's lap. The quiet boy had had to push him away at least three times, convinced that if Alois had been able to, he would have either crawled inside the book to experience it directly or inside of Ciel's skull to be able to read faster.

Alois bites his bottom lip and sits back. The increase of distance is curious to the charcoal-haired boy. "Are you imagining Treasure Island too?" he inquires after Alois has been unnaturally silent for several minutes.

"No…I'm just…thinking about how…I wish I could’ve been able to read this book to my little brother, Luca. He would’ve…really liked this. Black dot curses starting adventures and pirates with peg legs…treasure hunts." Alois looks sadly over at Ciel, "and…he'd have just gone on and on…about the kid."

"The kid? Jim Hawkins? Why?"

Alois laughs a little, but there is no mirth. "Because…my name isn't really Alois. I…made up that name when I went into…business…because it sounded," he shrugs, "exotic. My real name is Jim Macken."

Ciel's eyes widen.

"I know. It's a completely boring name, right? Jim? Like two-thirds of the boys in the country are named James or whatever. And it got to a point where everyone called me Alois but Luca. He always called me…brother Jim." Alois clutches his chest at a memory of his frail little brother, giant eyes, sick but smiling as Alois opens the door to their one-room apartment.

_Oh, Luca…I haven't thought of you…in so long._

"But…I'm not Jim anymore. I maybe…stopped being Jim long before…" he swallows as a trail of images and memories connect in his mind, one linking to another, from one "brother Jim" to the next until the face that uttered those precious words is just an infant newborn, soft and pink and fragile, and the completely forgotten voice of his own mothers says, "this is your new little brother, Jim. You need to watch over and protect him."

"Fuck…" Alois' body curls in helpless pain and guilt. It is an old pain, more of a persistent ache then a stabbing wound, but it twists him up inside enough that he draws his legs up to his chin and swallows hard. How he had failed. How he had….completely failed.

"What happened?" Ciel's soft voice breaks the silence.

Alois looks up. Ciel is watching him with one blue eye, a note of curiosity to replace the normally unreadable mask.

"You…really want to know?"

Ciel frowns. "If…you don't want to talk about it."

"No, no…I just…" Alois takes a deep breath. "It's not…really interesting. Luca and I grew up in a small village in the country. When we were still little, our parents got sick and died. The people thought our family was cursed or something and gave us shit. We were barely living, so we stole and did odd jobs until we had enough money to get to London." Alois smiles wryly, "We thought London was the answer, that in the big city no one would think we were cursed…that maybe we could pick some pockets because they would be plentiful, right? Food too.

"Wrong. The first thing they tried to do was stick us in an orphanage. And, no, hell no, they weren’t going to split us up, so we ran away and found our own place to live. But…it was…it wasn't much of a life. Pick-pocketing was something that was regulated by the underground, and they weren't keen on hillbilly newcomers. And there are laws against perverts in this country, but that just seems to make the whole problem worse. I had to watch out for Luca, and I had to feed us. And…there was a black market for willing boys, hillbilly or not, and it was easy money. It was just me doing that. Luca was spared the worst horrors of the world, but…not hunger, not sickness.

"Consumption. Do you know about it?"

Ciel nods.

"It gets inside and…just…liquefies your lungs. Slowly. And there’s no cure. He got it from that city. I thought, hoped, maybe, that I'd get it too…it seemed…kind of unfair that my mother and father and brother all died from illness and I didn't." Alois picks at his own blanket sullenly. "He got sick…and just…" he exhales deeply, in sympathy, "one day he just…stopped breathing. I wasn't home. I had gone out to try, for the fifteenth time, to get a doctor to come see him…in case there was anything… _anything_  I could do besides watch him die. But…I guess Luca didn't want me to see him die either. And I never get sick. Even the police doctor said I didn't have any diseases. A miracle, right?" he shakes his head. "But not my kid brother. Ahh, that kid. What a kid…when he was in bed all the time, if I could’ve read him this book…he would’ve loved it."

Ciel sees the glistening moisture in Alois' eyes and is slightly surprised. He thought a boy who was hard enough to seemingly laugh at a world that had taken his family and abused his body wouldn't be able to shed a tear. In a moment of clarity, however, Ciel realizes how wrong he is. It is the culture that says boys are not to cry, and Alois likes to make his own rules. For everything. He liberated himself from the world's expectations because there was no longer anything left to tie him down. Ciel tries to sift his feelings for this hot-blooded, untamable creature. His story was sad, but who did not have a sad story in this place? If Alois carried on this way eventually he was going to throw himself into a wall that would not break…that would break him instead.

How does he feel about that? Ciel cannot think about this. He takes the easiest escape.

"Would you like me to continue?"

Alois' grin spreads from ear to ear, a strange contrast to the tears still in his eyes. He jumps up with agitated excitement. "Hey, Ciel, is that book you’re always reading in this library? That Prince one? I bet it is, somewhere. Do you want to read that now?"

Ciel memorizes the page he is on and closes the book. "No."

"Huh? No? Why not? Isn't it your favorite?" Alois punctuates the statement by bending himself backwards, until Ciel thinks he must fall onto his ass in accordance with the laws of physics. And then his bare feet fly up in the air, backwards in a flip, until Alois is on his feet again.

"Ta da!" He flourishes.

Ciel rolls his eye. "You should have gone into the circus, not prostitution."

"Same thing," Alois grins slyly. "I'm completely flexible. Do you want to see me put my foot behind my head?"

"No!"

Alois giggles and stretches onto his tip toes to see how far up his fingertips will reach up on the stacks. "Ooo, I'm getting so tall! Jealous, Ciel?"

"Shut it." Ciel's response is petulant.

"Well, tell me where your book is, mister I-have-the-library-memorized. Hey, why is it you love that book so much anyway?" There is silence as he self-measures. Alois looks down when Ciel does not answer right away.

"It is the only thing I own outright."

"Oh?" Alois is interested because Ciel's face has become a mask. He wants to break the mask but…he has to understand what causes it in the first place. What is the connection to the book? He kneels down in front of the other boy, trying to still the compulsion to work out through movement the ache brought on by old guilt. "Was it…a present?"

For a moment it appears that Ciel has become a statue. The candlelight, where his eye is vaguely directed, gleams against matte stone.

"You could call it that."

Alois is vaguely and irrationally jealous that Ciel accepted a gift from anyone besides him at any other point in his life. "Who?"

"The…headmaster."

The headmaster? Claude Faustus? That….that bastard! Alois' blond brows tilt and his mercurial emotions slide to rage. "Why…why do you keep it? Why don't you burn it instead of…treating it like its priceless!"

The mask breaks for a second and Ciel's eye looks up, seething. "You idiot, you don't burn a book, no matter what the book is. And I have kept it because despite the fact that he mocks me with it, I am going to learn from it. I am going to leave this place strong and I will never bow to another again. I will crush all opposition under me," he makes and clenches a small fist, reciting out loud a mantra he has repeated so many times in his mind. "I will use it. I will use it, and I will climb to the top."

The incredibly rare display of intense emotion is infectious. Alois drops to his knees in front of Ciel. "But you can't wait until you leave here. You have to use it  _now_." And then the elephant in the room is dragged out into the candlelight. "I hate…I hate what he’s doing to you. You have to put a stop to it!"

Ciel's eye becomes ice cold. "And how do you propose I do that?"

" _Tell_  someone! Don't be silent. I know adults are idiots, but you have all of this intelligence. You have read all of these books to the point where you have the bloody library practically memorized. You have to make a plan!"

"A plan? A plan to do what? It's my word against his, Alois." Ciel is flushed, he stabs his finger in the direction of the door furiously. His heart is pounding too loudly in his head. It will break his skull. "He has all of the power. He has resources.  _He_  is the Prince, Alois. That's his message. He knows I cannot tell anyone…He is manipulative and controlling: a perfect ruler."

"That is your idea of perfection? Ciel, he’s using your pride against you! Can't you see that?" Alois thinks of that moment in the dormitory when he had smilingly brought Ciel his favorite food…the sight of that tiny body covered... _covered_  with bruises, welts, scars and worse. His Ciel. He remembers the look of terror and shame on the charcoal-haired boy's face when he had done  _nothing._  "Your pride alone can't stop him. You have to take action!"

This is the last straw. Ciel grabs the front of Alois' nightshirt, gritting his teeth. "How dare you insult my pride. It’s the only thing I have. To speak…" Ciel's tongue catches in his throat as he realizes what he is doing. He is…talking about this. Actually, alluding to the horrific torture, the pain, the mind games…everything. But if he tells anyone, they will look upon him with either pity or disgust. There were so many ways it could all fall against him, so many eyes to pry into the shielded core of his bruised soul. He imagines himself in a room full of stern-looking men as Claude Faustus calmly and convincingly tells them all that he has no idea why he is being targeted. That all he had ever wanted was to teach an unfortunate orphan how to speak French…

"The plan…" he begins shakily, avoiding further talk of his abuses at all costs. The shadow of Claude Faustus hangs over him, ready to whisper into his ear, pull his arms behind his back, and pierce his barriers with casual but skilled precision. Ciel releases Alois and looks away, his voice barely above a whisper. "The plan is to learn… to… leave here…to never let it happen again. To build an empire with my seat so high…that everyone else below will appear as nothing but ants that I may crush with a thought."

Ciel is breathing hard. He feels it, a kind of madness, and he is standing right there on the edge. All of the screams he has bottled up beat at him with fists of stone and beg for release. They weigh on his chest with such pressure. The world falls away into the bright point of the candle, and he sways.

An arm grabs his shoulder and pulls him back from that abyss of hellfire.

"You can't let it go on. I won't let you."

Ciel blinks back the moisture in his eyes that had come from his unblinking stare into hell. He looks up at the blue eyes gazing at him now with equal intensity. The boy with one good eye pulls back instinctively to prepare the barrier once more.

"What would  _you_  do?"

The blond boy's expression changes, subtly, darkly. "I would kill him."

Ciel is momentarily shocked by this bold but unswerving statement from the boy who smells like candy and tugs on his arm like a small child. He breathes. He concentrates on breathing evenly.

"What do you know…about killing?"

Alois tips his head to the side. For a split second he hesitates, and then he seems to come to a conclusion. He smiles and sits back on his haunches. His expression is self-satisfied, and twin blue flames of intense malice burn in his eyes as he admits, "I have murdered before. Twice."

_(to be continued)_


	4. The Game of Kings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alois makes a deal with Ciel, a miracle descends, and Ciel learns the truth about Alois' madness...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *bows* Thank you, so much, for the comments. I have to admit, this is one of my favorite chapters.

* * *

_And therefore a prince who does not understand the art of war, over and above the other misfortunes already mentioned, cannot be respected by his soldiers, nor can he rely on them. He ought never, therefore, to have out of his thoughts this subject of war, and in peace he should addict himself more to its exercise than in war; this he can do in two ways, the one by action, the other by study._

-Niccolo Machiavelli  _The Prince_

* * *

 

**Chapter 4: The Game of Kings**

" _I have murdered before. Twice."_

The charcoal-haired boy is speechless. His eye narrows and then widens slightly. There is no falsehood in the blue flames, no regret, no remorse at such a confession…it is a facet of Alois he has not even considered. And he believes him.

"How? Why?"

Alois turns his golden head towards the darkness. When he looks back, the blue flame of madness is gone and he lays down, propping himself on one hand. "I told you that I was in a pretty illegal business. It brings out…the worst kind of customers sometimes. I purveyed a service, but sometimes…the buyers would try to get more than what they paid for. It's illegal, for them and for me, and although that means I didn't have much protection, neither did they. 'Buyer beware.'

"As for how? Both times," Alois draws his finger across his neck in a fairly universal gesture. "The first guy…he was into that strangling thing. I wasn’t. It was an alley near the river. Both of that fucker's hands were on my neck. My hand was on my blade. It was…instinctual, happened so fast." Alois looks at the candle. "I was…really calm the whole time. I stripped all my clothes. I pulled him out of his coat, took his wallet, and put on his smelly, sweaty shirt. I set all of my clothes and his coat on fire with the matches he had in his pocket. While it burned I dumped him into the river. As the fire bells were ringing I danced back home. And I mean…I pretty much danced."

Alois pauses. He puts his arms behind him, and lounges his head on them as if he had just explained what he had had for lunch that day. The blond-haired boy looks up at Ciel to see how he is taking it.

Ciel is quiet and thoughtful. His eye betrays nothing from within his shielded barrier.

"And the other one?"

Alois makes a small sound like a disgusted chuckle. It chills Ciel to the core.

"Killing him was a gift to humanity."

"What do you mean?"

Alois runs his tongue over his bottom lip and then purses them together. "That guy…I'll just make the long story short. You know how London gets a new serial killer every few years? Twisted fucks who carve out women's intestines or cut off willies and make their owners eat them?"

Ciel hadn't heard of the last one, but… "Yes? I don't get much news about London here."

"Right. So, you probably didn't know that last year there was some wacko torturing and killing boys, leaving them in dirty hovels for the police."

"No, I didn't…wait…"

"I know how to pick ‘em, right?" He thumbs his chest, "I was almost a statistic. A trophy."

Ciel cannot believe his ears. He stares at Alois with his one good eye, boring out any detectable falsehoods. "You…killed….a serial killer?"

"I had no idea it was him until…" Alois shrugs, but his blue-eyed counterpart sees the azure flame burning again. "It was something like…two days. Tied up. Drugged, not drugged, whipped, and…and I wanted, very much, to kill him. Not to save anyone else after me, not to help the police, not for the Queen or for any other bullshit like that. I didn't have anything left in my life; I was trash to the world. But…for what he did. I wanted…to…kill…him. It was all I thought about."

Alois stares at the dwindling candle. Dredging up the memory of those cold, emotionless days was far easier than remembering his brother's sweet smile. The precision, the accuracy of his kick, right to the groin, his tied wrists thrown over and around that neck and the strange superhuman strength that accompanied the feeling of power. Finally. Power.

Ciel feels slightly embarrassed for being drawn into this story, but the similarities in many respects to his own condition, his own feelings, is compelling. How many times had he quietly murdered Claude Faustus in his mind late at night when the happy memories of his childhood could no longer comfort him?

"How…how did you kill him?"

Alois sees Ciel's face. It is a mirror.

"He made a mistake, and I can be a very talented actor when I put my mind to it. Strangled that bastard with the rope he used to tie me up. I got out of there and let the cops find him." Alois sits up suddenly and leans towards Ciel, causing the other boy to draw back slightly at his intensity.

"Here's the total fucking irony. Investigating the murderer's murder is what got me caught."

Ciel raises an eyebrow.

"Took me almost two weeks to heal up from that adventure. In the meantime, I was starving, so I took the first job I could get my hands on. Turns out it was a fucking inspector from Scotland Yard undercover. He had heard from a guy who knew a girl who knew some other schmuck who knew where I frequented. Whatever. However they do their job."

"But…they didn't try you for murder?"

"Not enough evidence or something. I don't know. Ciel, when you’re a kid they don't tell you shit in a jail cell, and you keep your mouth shut unless it's going to for sure get you a handout." Alois sits back on his legs, hands on the comforter between them like a toddler. "I think that inspector knew. I think he knew for sure, but he came and told me he wanted to help put me on the straight and narrow. Really, too much of a nice guy for his job. Too nice. Probably has a brood of rug rats at home."

"And…that’s how you ended up here?" Ciel connects all of the dots.

"Yeah. Nice, huh? Letting a murderer loose in this 'home?'"

Ciel looks away. "You are so casual about it."

Alois' blond brows tilt forward and the smile fades. "Ciel, those bastards were all dicks. They had it coming. There are probably a million like them that should go down, and that Faustus fucker is at the very very top of the list right now."

Ciel shakes his head slowly. The thoughts crowding his brain are terrifying because they all contain the headmaster's cold, calculating gaze. And on top of it all, Alois…a murderer at 13. Twice a murderer. How could a boy who bounces so much have upon his shoulders the weight of homicide? But the answer to that at least was clear, wasn't it? Alois didn't feel the weight at all. In his mind, he was free of all guilt. Alois claimed he had nothing left to lose. Wasn't that the same as him?

No, it wasn't the same. Ciel had still one thing left to cling to.

He shakes his head. "I will not stoop to murder. The headmaster is a detestable creature, but I will not fall to his level or worse."

The blond-haired boy stares at Ciel in confusion. "How- no, please, explain-how does it get worse? Does he have to kill you?"

Ciel's head whips towards the other boy, a flare of anger tingling beneath his skin, before he realizes that it is pointless. Based upon his own life experiences, Alois cannot possibly understand. Still, something in the nature of the flow of this conversation prompts the smaller boy, for some reason, to try to explain. "If I live or if I die I will do so with my pride intact. That is all there is. My father was a proud, respected businessman. My mother was honorable and faithful. He can sully my body, but if he cannot have that last inch of me, then, no matter how much power he has, no matter…then I will have won. When I leave this place, I will shed my memories and become the man my father would have been proud to see. I will not allow it to taint me."

Ciel closes his mouth abruptly and swallows. He has never spoken so much at one time since before the fire. There is something strangely compelling about Alois, even though Ciel had spent the first week and a half of their acquaintance listening with only half an ear. He had come to believe at some point that he was using Alois for the measure of comfort his presence provided, the protection from the bullies who had all but disappeared since he had allowed Alois to dance around him, but now it was starting to crystallize: Alois plucked some string inside the barrier of his closed heart, a string he thought had snapped.

And Alois might be truly, deeply, disturbed.

"You make it sound like I don't have any pride at all."

Ciel looks at the other boy out of the corner of his eye. Alois' voice is low, not accusatory-hurt, perhaps. The boy with the charcoal hair says nothing because he does not know how to respond without hazarding a complete insult. Thankfully, Alois has already seen through him.

"I have pride, but…I had to make my own rules for it." Alois gets up and stretches. He bends over, cracks his back, and then stands up, reaching his arms to heaven, his gazing following them, before he looks back down to Ciel.

"I'm not like you, Ciel. I'm not really book smart, and I don't have the luxury, the desire, or the ability to plan ahead. You talk about what kind of man you plan to be when you leave here like it was printed in that book you love so much. I believe you can do that. You have more willpower than anyone I’ve ever met. Me? I can't plan ahead, so I decide what’s going to let me keep my pride minute by minute. For example, when Robert, that boy, was taunting you, throwing stones? I saw it and I said to myself, ‘stop that asshole, Alois, or you are worthless.’ So I did it. Four nights ago I was lying awake in bed, surrounded by all of these helpless little cogs, and I thought, Alois, go steal some candy from the locked cabinet in the kitchen or you’re officially the most useless little cog here. So I did." He pauses in his story to drop instantly to his knees in front of Ciel. "Incidentally, I have a whole bag of taffy. I tried to decide what your favorite flavor was, but we’ve never talked about taffy. What is it? Orange? Vanilla? I thought maybe vanilla…"

"Alois!" Ciel blinks. This boy…but it begins to explain things. Notably, the candy-sweet breath he perpetually maintains, the taste of it on his tongue…The boy with the one good eye flushes.

Alois sees the response and comes to his own decision about the blush's source. "You were just thinking of sharing taffy with me weren't you, just now?" He points to his own lips and his grin is rakish and completely inappropriate.

Ciel sputters. His eye twitches and he physically turns his body from that look lest the memories of illicit and shameful contact earlier that night cause him to burn through the comforter around him. As it is, he has noticed the chill of the air no longer touches him.

"Hey, hey now! You've kissed me without candy incentive! I just thought, you know, since 'nothing is going to come of boy kissing' that I might at least make something come of it. A sugar high? I'm not stingy." Alois crawls on his hands and knees around Ciel's physical barrier to taunt him with a giggle.

To his horror, Ciel finds himself turning his head to stare at the wall like a small child. "What kind of creature are you, Alois Trancy? Stop this nonsense." It is his most imperious voice that brooks no argument, but he feels right ridiculous for having to employ it in this situation.

Alois sighs and leans back on his calves. "I don't know."

Ciel does not move for a few seconds, unsure of whether this is merely a continuation of the taunt, but when Alois is too silent he turns his head slightly. Alois' shoulders are bent. His hands lie listlessly on the coverlet, and he is staring, presumably, at its weave.

In spite of himself, Ciel feels a twinge of something somewhere inside his chest. There is a wrongness about Alois' pose at this moment; it is too defeated, too crushed beneath a weight that Ciel cannot see.

"I don't know what I am. I'm not a son anymore. I'm not a brother anymore. I'm not even a whore anymore. I feel like I am waiting to become someone, and I think I know what that someone has to be…"

Ciel waits. In the dim light of the library there is a unique atmosphere he has never felt in this place: A sense of being thoroughly outside of time, outside of England, outside, even, himself- a safe place where, perhaps, miraculous things could happen as they did in books.

Alois raises his eyes and the two blue orbs have within them that fire that Ciel has come to associate with passion. And the smaller boy is strangely relieved to see it has not gone.

"Look at me. I completely forgot what I was saying a moment ago. The thought of you and a piece of taffy between our lips just knocked everything else out of my brain." He hits the side of his fluffy blond curls with the heel of his right hand, but the smile on his face is not the same as the one that had danced across it a second earlier.

Ciel gives him an acidic look, but cannot fully bring himself to brush the nonsense away. "You were saying that you cannot plan ahead."

"Right!" Alois picks up the thread as if he had never dropped it. "I can't make plans. I can't figure it out, I can't…" he waves his hand, "see the bigger picture. I thought about killing Robert once, when he said something creepy and unforgivable about you, but I didn't actually declare it. I didn't declare it because I couldn't figure out how to go about it without a convenient river to toss him into. See? This is where we need to work together." Alois slaps both hands on Ciel's comforter-clad legs to emphasize his point.

Ciel raises an eyebrow. It is impossible to tell whether or not Alois is serious because he treats so many issues with the same level of casual detachment. He decides to gloss over the contemplated murder of a boy in favor of the ludicrous theme of his rant. "I fail to see how I am in any way implicated in your shortcomings."

"Okay, follow me here," Alois begins, as if Ciel is the one with the inability to maintain focus. He stands up, unable to keep still, and begins to pace. "You have the will power and the intelligence, and the foresight but you don't take initiative to make any changes. I have the bullocks and the will and all the initiative in the universe but no idea how to make it all come together. See? If you can turn this attitude around, get behind the idea that Faustus can completely go to hell, then I can be your fist, your dagger, whatever is needed." He stops abruptly and drops down into a crouch in front of Ciel, his hands nervously clutching around his own knees like a five-year-old boy inspecting a crack in the ground. "I can be your power, Ciel. That's who I want to be. That's what I want to become."

This is a pivotal moment; the thin, frail boy understands this. It is the reason that his energetic companion of late has taken such great pains to bring him here, whether or not he had had the foresight to plan it. Alois wants him to say yes, to agree to draw him deeply into the complicated structure of pain that stands around Ciel like a prison.

But he cannot.

Ciel's expression is cold. He is locking things away like cleaning up a room. Alois has spent the last few moments kicking every skeleton from his closet, opening the contents of his drawers and flinging his britches everywhere. He has cracked the mirror in that inner room where once he understood the order of each thing. In a moment of weakness and curiosity Ciel had allowed it all to be exposed…but now that the moment is over, it is time to right his universe once more.

The truth is that Alois Trancy can no more be his "power" than a hairbrush; a hairbrush had a function, a nice one, an appreciated function, but after one's hair was brushed it had to sit upon the dresser and simply be a brush. A brush cannot extricate him from the complicated labyrinth of Claude Faustus' games. It cannot become even a true weapon, lacking sharp edges or enough weight to make a difference. No, at the end of the day, he is surprised to find that he enjoys Alois' affections and attentions, but that is where it must end. No matter the pleading look now in the other boy's expression, Ciel will not take the chance. If he attempts to expose his abuse, no matter the means, the only one who will lose is himself. He is locked in a battle of wills with the headmaster, and that is an exclusive competition.

Alois' face falls. He can see Ciel retreating from him and it is like watching a small puppy get washed away by a tidal wave. It is like watching Luka die…again.

"Ciel!" He grabs his hand as if by doing so he can somehow bring them both back…but the current is too strong.

Ciel stands up suddenly, and Alois is surprised by the action. He stands up too, rubbing the back of his hand over wet eyes hastily.

"Do you know how to play chess?"

Alois blinks. It is his turn to be caught off guard.

"No…"

"Come." Ciel picks up the bit of candle and walks right out of his comforter, chin up, straight-backed, a mini emperor, and Alois must follow after him. The light proceeds before the smaller boy like a beacon, half illuminating all of the literary treasures in the library. The taller boy must watch his step, but he is captured by the moment, curious, the devastating loss of a second ago diminished by this unprompted invitation.

Ciel stops in front of a small round table with a chess board inlaid into the wood made of some kind of expensive quarried stone. He looks around with his one blue eye and then drops down to a crouch with the candle to search below. The wavering yellow light exposes a brown leather box of some kind with brass clasps. Ciel gently sets the candle on the floor near it and uses both hands to undo the closures, opening the box to Alois who leans over his shoulder. Inside is a beautiful set of chess pieces, clearly hand-carved and reflecting the candle's light with little, glittering specks: white marble shot through with black veins, and black marble with white veins. Ciel is reverent before the set as a priest before an altar. He picks up a piece crowned with a cross at its apex.

"This is the king piece," he explains academically. "It is the piece by which you lose the game, making it the most important, but it has the least amount of power."

Alois' eyebrows crease and he leans forward to take it from Ciel's hand. "That's bullocks."

Ciel smiles in spite of everything.

"That is how games of any value are ever won. The game is not truly played with the king; it is played with the pawns, the bishops, the rooks, the knights, and the queen. On the one hand, it is an elementary task to learn the different moves of each piece, but it is an elaborate test of one's ability to judge an opponent, to plan several steps in advance, to sacrifice and feint and attack to a 'check mate.'" His hand runs respectfully over the pieces he has come to see as almost Grail-like in his quest to win his own game with the headmaster. "It is a game that is not a game. It was used to train young lords and kings in ages past to be shrewd tacticians, to be efficient rulers. This, and the book I study, together, hold the key…"

"Teach it to me."

Ciel stops in mid breath at the absolutely ludicrous demand that has just issued from the blond boy's mouth.

"What?"

"You said it was 'elementary' to learn the moves. If I have your fancy speech down, what you’re saying is that an idiot can learn the rules, and if you get really good at it, you can learn to plan ahead and beat the asshole you’re playing, right?" The fiery blue sparkle in Alois' eyes alights on the king piece, and it is no coincidence that he shifts his gaze from the piece to the small boy now aiming a disbelieving look in his direction.

"That is, essentially, what I said, but to be even a mediocre player requires great focus and patience, two qualities which you have already admitted are lacking in your personality." Ciel takes the king piece back as if the matter was closed and replaces it with the others in the box, shutting and latching it once more.

"You don't think I can be taught?"

Ciel shakes his head. "It is not a matter of 'being taught' if you do not have the most rudimentary mindset to begin. Such a thing would be a waste of time."

Alois' expression is of one who has been slapped, but while his face darkens and his fists clench, he does not retaliate. This is Ciel. This is his way. Ciel only has one eye left, and it is perpetually closed to all possibility, but the blond-haired boy is not about to give up.

"What…what would prove to you that I can do this?"

The smaller boy stands and unconsciously shudders in the cold which he has begun to feel again. "Prove?"

"Yes, tell me. Something that I could…show you, that I can be taught, that I  _will_  learn."

Ciel is about to tell this boy to give it up. He is tired, this night has been taxing, and it is late, but he remembers the sensation in his heart earlier when he saw the blue fire in those eyes die down and, for some reason he cannot fathom, he does not want to see it go out again. Besides, this chess board, the richest, most beautiful centerpiece of the entire orphanage, has been greedily locked away by his tormentor; he is only able to play it when Claude Faustus has a use for the experience in his sick mind games. Like Ciel, it has been twisted by suffering, its once noble purpose broken, and such a travesty does not sit well with the young man. Perhaps this experience could be a ticket to at least a partial redemption…for both of them.

"Learn to read."

Alois blinks. "I want you to teach me that too…"

Ciel raises a hand like a prince who will not argue trivialities with a whining peasant. "I may supplement the lessons, but you admitted yourself that you cannot concentrate in your classes because it is boring and beneath you. If you wish to learn how to play chess then the first lesson is to observe all of the opportunities presented to you, even if they do not appear like opportunities. That is the cornerstone understanding. It is the only compromise I will make."

It does not take long for the taller boy to agree. This was not what he wanted, but in some ways it is more than what he wanted. The cold, insulated, lonely boy's attitude has changed slightly, he can feel it. Though Alois knows his offer to be Ciel's power has been summarily rejected,  _he_  has not been rejected. A week and a half ago Ciel barely knew he existed and was surrounded by a wall of pure granite. Tonight this same boy offers to teach him something of incredible value. Two things. Well, one and a half. Perhaps if he can learn, then there is still hope that Ciel could someday take a measure of his own advice and see the opportunities with which he is presented.

"Deal." Alois agrees. He spits into his palm and holds it out to Ciel with a maddeningly triumphant grin. Ciel stares at his hand and his expression becomes thoroughly bland and unamused.

"That will do."

Alois slaps Ciel's back with the moist palm and giggles. There was something, finally, in this dreary and dead place to look forward to.

* * *

**The next morning…**

Ciel is exhausted when he is roused for his studies. Despite the bright moments in an otherwise dim and dark life the night before, he wakes with the calm assurance that Claude Faustus is ninety-nine percent likely to interrupt the last five minutes of his math studies to begin his "French lessons" today. Had Ciel been informed that he was the heir to a multi-million pound empire and could leave this accursed place in twenty-four hours, it would not alter the anguish in his heart. His fingers shake and falter as he ties the eye patch around his forehead, and his knees tremble as he pulls himself out of bed. Ciel, however, does not believe in hiding from his reality. To maintain his pride, he must face it with dignity.

At lunch Alois is nowhere to be found, again, and the cold boy is not the type to solicit information from his peers, the majority of whom already regard him as either being cursed (because of his continued patronage of a known haunted statue in the courtyard), displaying an excessively arrogant personality (the boy himself agrees with this assessment), and having far too much privileged time with the headmaster. Thus, the boy with the one blue eye sits in an isolated place in the refectory, ignoring his food and bracing himself for a scolding about his eating habits by Cook on top of his impending psychological and physical abuse. He wonders where Alois is, today of days, when he overhears something unbelievable from a table over.

Something miraculous…

Stunned, but hardly daring to pin a hope on lunch chatter, he clears his place early to have his daily scolding over and done with so that he may arrive a few moments before his letters lesson. The teacher, Professor Alfred, is a notorious gossip at the home, though he takes a modicum of care to keep his wellspring of information from thirsty student lips. A  _modicum_  of care only, however. Standing around the corner to the classroom, clutching his over-heavy burden of books, the boy with the charcoal hair is given a taste of Professor Alfred's shallow waters.

Punctuated with personal editorial, Professor Alfred discusses with Professor Dawson the decision by the board of the orphanage of St. Sebastian to deny the headmaster's designs to pull down the statue of its patron saint in the courtyard. Despite his contributions to the establishment and his de facto power as its director, the board ruled that there was not enough reason for Claude Faustus to obliterate the ancient and venerated statue of their patron saint that has stood solid for over 100 years and had been twice repaired through the generosity of an anonymous benefactor. Professor Alfred went on to divulge Faustus' argument that the statue was in disrepair and a danger to the boys. The board apparently ruled that an investigation of the claim would begin and steps taken to repair or replace the statue if necessary.

Ciel feels his legs become weak. He has forgotten to breathe for the last few moments. When he takes a breath, he sounds and feels like a fish that has been miraculously set free from the hook and thrown back into the concealing and comforting waters. In response to his gasp, Professor Alfred's head appears around the corner, but Ciel does not run. He sees the professor's lips moving, hears a tone that sounds chiding and displeased, but the boy with the one blue eye and the body covered in scars and burns cannot respond to him; he is thoroughly absorbed by this apparent change of the tide.

This is the truth: The statue of St. Sebastian, like his namesake, has survived the first attempt on its life. It has been given a reprieve. And if past board rulings where an "investigation" was ordered were any indication, then the reprieve could very well be indefinite. That cold statue, that face and presence that terrified every boy that looked upon it, was a symbolic sentinel for the frail boy who had called out for a miracle. Ciel had wanted a sign. Just yesterday he had mentally shouted to the statue in agony. Just yesterday. And this morning the board defeated Claude Faustus.

No, not defeated. He was not so naive to believe that this would set the headmaster back. If nothing else, his efforts would redouble, but Ciel thinks he may have a marginal chance of escaping his tormentor today, at least. Surely, if his bold move in this game was countered by unexpected players he would feel the need to fall back and regroup before facing him. The boy trembles, not from joy, but from satisfaction. Deep satisfaction. Claude Faustus' forward momentum has been slowed, and this understanding bolsters the resolve and courage of the charcoal-haired boy.

He is physically shaken out of his reverie by Professor Alfred who feels his forehead. Ciel pulls back quickly, disliking the hot touch of his hand. The boy collects himself, apologizes, makes the excuse that he had a question to discuss with the professor that prompted his early arrival, and then hastily takes his seat. The other boys in his row appear discomfited by the small, darkly smug smile on Ciel Phantomhive's face.

* * *

**That afternoon…**

He did not come.

The normally taciturn boy with one blue is smiling. The nervous glances of his peers serve only to amuse him further. He finds that even without Alois as his constant, bright shadow, he is not hassled in the slightest by those who used to take the opportunity to mock him, hit him, knock books from his hands, and all of the myriad other things that boys will do when they believe they have cornered something weak or inexplicable. In fact, he has only spared one thought for Alois' absence that day, chalking it up to a trivial matter; unruly boys were often held during the lunch hour, and it was no secret to Ciel that Alois was energetic and prone to acts of mischief.

Ciel makes his way triumphantly from his math lesson. Out of a strange impulse, he had decided to wait, to be last to leave, as if to punctuate his victory. When he thinks of how Claude Faustus must be seething, his horrible, yellow eyes narrowed in frustration behind twin panes of glass, he cannot help but feel his step become lighter.

At the water fountain at the end of a silent hall he pauses to have a drink. Despite his earlier bravado, he had sweat all the way through Professor Dawson's lecture on Euclidean geometry, waiting for fate to double-cross him once more, though it did not happen.

With all that is on the boy's mind, it is not surprising that he does not hear or sense a dangerously-heavy tread behind him until it is too late. In the midst of a mouthful of water, Ciel feels his collar roughly grabbed from behind. He is swept almost off his feet, and maintains a slight grip on his balance only because of the hand at the nape of his neck, tiny hairs rising in response to the danger.

Few things cause Ciel Phantomhive to lose his composure. Being touched or grabbed from behind is one of them. This is not Alois, who knows much better. It is also not the headmaster, because the angle at which he is dragged back suggests a shorter stature. Despite having quickly ruled out the worst of suspects, it cannot keep the smaller boy from taking a firm hold of his book of arithmetic, turning, and whipping the text with a rush of adrenaline at the arm imprisoning him.

Robert cries out briefly as the book connects with a nerve in his arm, but like an elephant, the shot only serves to further infuriate him. Ciel turns completely, his chest heaving. Facing his enemy, he can at least cease the tremor in his arm as he loses his grip on his paltry weapon. Ciel stands up straight, his blue eye narrows.

The large boy does not give Ciel a chance to re-collect his momentarily-shaken pride with any haughty words. Instead, he closes the distance between then, takes a fist full of Ciel's crisp collar in his meaty hand, and shoves him into the wall.

Ciel sees tiny bright lights pop like champagne bubbles in his vision. He does not panic. Bullies run in a predictable cycle: they get attention, they enact some sort of physical blow/s, deliver trite, vaguely menacing threats, and then they clear out before they can be caught. The boy with the blue eye must merely wait this out as he has done many times before Alois' arrival.

Robert is getting bold indeed. His face does not register the usual hint of self-consciousness that bullies usually have when engaging in their recalcitrant behavior. "Hello, hello, Ciel. You’re walking around like the Prince of Wales these days, but where, oh where, is your little body guard?"

Ciel stares back levelly but says nothing. This is his typical response to bullying; it always has been, and always will be. The ignorance of the weak-willed masses does not deserve a response.

Robert leans close to Ciel's face, and tilts his head slightly. "Let's just cut to the chase, shall we? It's all a sham. I know all about it, Ciel. I know why you don't come to dinner. I know why. You’re nothing but a well-bred little  _whore_."

Ciel's eye darkens, his face pales to his everlasting shame and reveals a chink in his armor. A warning beacon is already flashing in the back of his mind; this is not a typical attack.

Robert is not a fat boy. He is not an ugly boy. His face at the moment, however, is the face of ultimate malevolence, glutted on his own narrow-minded ambition. The blue eye is meeting his gaze, but Ciel's legs have become weak. Even a mindless beast can sense weakness. Robert presses his attack.

"I may look like an imbecile to you, but I can add two and two. The private baths? The private dinners? That's how you’re paying for it all, your 'French lessons.'" He punctuates the last two words by imitating a froofy French accent coupled with a sing-song tone.

Ciel wants to laugh in his face now. Laugh hysterically. Oh, the irony. To be so misunderstood. To suffer and suffer and suffer and be called a whore, as if he is receiving something in return for his humiliation. As if he somehow benefits from the attention…

The charcoal-haired boy breaks his own rule.

"Do not presume that you know anything about me, and do not touch me so freely." Ciel grabs Robert's wrist and, like a cat, he digs his fingernails into the flesh mercilessly with all the frustrated, mournful strength he can muster.

Robert releases Ciel but immediately slams a hand on the wall next to him, using his proximity and height to loom over the smaller boy.

"Maybe you think that Blondy is going to be around forever to protect you," he hisses in a venomous whisper, "but I have news for you, boy-o. That little whore is two steps from being chucked from this place completely on the grounds of being an 'unmanageable psychopath,' and then what will you do?"

Ciel's one blue eye blinks at this.

Robert presses his taunt.

"What? Doesn't he tell you all about it while you’re screwing in the store room? He’s been in lock up five times since he’s been here. He beat a boy into unconsciousness and laughed like a fair lunatic when he did it." Robert gives it a second to sink in. "Everyone knows he’s mad. That's why they stay away…" he leans into Ciel's face, his expression suddenly and deliberately predatory. "But sooner or later, Ciel Phantomhive, he’ll be gone. He'll be sent back to prison or maybe straight to an asylum where they’ll tie him up and hose him down and beat the crazy out of him."

Ciel swallows. Alois, a lunatic? Perhaps, but his lunacy is relegated mostly to common acts of mischief, to dancing spontaneously, reciting pieces of crude poetry he makes up on the spot, to kissing him with candy-flavoured lips…

" _I set all of my clothes and his coat on fire with the matches he had in his pocket. While it burned I dumped him into the river. As the fire bells were ringing I danced back home. And I mean…I pretty much danced."_

Ciel's eye goes wide.

These are the truths: In his presence alone, Alois Trancy is manageable. The boy with the blond hair has nothing left to live for but this strange and unfathomable attachment he has formed to the frail, cold boy with one eye. Alois is the only one who knows his truth for what it is. Alois only. He is the only one who has seen behind his mask…and cares for what he sees. As it stands now, Alois Trancy will self-destruct and leave Ciel alone…

Until just now, Ciel had considered himself always alone.

At that very moment, with the tall boy leaning over him, realization exploding about his feet like land mines in hostile territory, the boy with the charcoal hair glimpses something rising above the bully's right shoulder like the sun at dawn.

Alois' hair in the dimly-lit hallway seems to give off its own unholy radiance. There is no sound but Robert's heaving breath and the rush and pound of blood in Ciel's veins. The boy with the unkempt socks and unbuttoned collar, the boy who has tried at every turn to hold his hand or touch his lips, the boy who has trotted behind him faithfully like a puppy, or charged before him like a hunting hound, is now fully in view. His eyes are burning with blue hellfire, wide, and an impossible grin twists his features into a caricature of some satanic jester. There is not one gleam of rational thought there as he stares down at his prey: the boy he admitted he had entertained the notion of killing.

Ciel feels he is watching this in slow motion, fascinated and horrified and in a state of shock.

Slowly, stealthily, Alois raises his right hand. Something glints in the weak light. Ciel can feel Alois' indrawn breath, the tensing of muscles, the firming of the grip on his weapon, the spark of a thought about to become reality.

" _Stop!_ "

Ciel's unnaturally loud voice is the only warning Robert gets, but it is delivered too late and he never see the danger coming. Alois' fist descends. At the last moment he angles the glinting instrument to the side and uses his knuckles to punch the taller boy in the side of the face with such ferocity that he is knocked prone almost instantly. Out cold.

Ciel stands in shock. Alois swiftly pockets the sharp glint of metal, his smile so recognizable now that the boy with the charcoal hair would have simply assumed it was "normal." Except that he very nearly murdered a boy. In front of him.

"And the curtain falls. The audience goes wild! Demands an encore!" He collects Ciel's books in one hand and the other boys' wrist in the other.

"Don't you hear that, Ciel? This scene is over. We should probably exit stage left." The sound of Alois' giggles as they race out of the building to the courtyard is the currency of a mad man.

_To be continued_


	5. Needed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ciel has a terrible dilemma: Alois is a boy of Action. Unfortunately his actions are going to get him expelled and Ciel can't have that happen. Later, in the library, Alois tries to prove that he's worthy of Ciel's chess lessons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of notes:
> 
> 1\. a "stone" is a measure of weight in Victorian England. Five stone is roughly seventy pounds.
> 
> 2\. The Victoria Primer Alois reads from in this chapter is a real book. It makes Dick and Jane seem exciting by comparison. Google it if you are feeling researchful.
> 
> And now, without further ado...

 

* * *

 

" _Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are."_

-Niccolo Machiavelli  _The Prince_

* * *

 

**Chapter 5: Needed**

Ciel is still too stunned to protest. Like a marionette he is pulled along at Alois’ pace, barely able to keep up with the longer, erratic strides until they are beneath the statue of St. Sebastian in the courtyard. There Ciel roots his feet and the blond-haired boy stops, ready to slow the mad getaway in favor of a bit of crowing.

"The look on your face, Ciel. The look!" He throws up his arms and twirls around under the statue, finally flinging them around the martyr's legs, addressing the cold stone. "Did you see  _that_  Sebastian? I'm so much scarier than you, you softy, just lounging around out here. Did you see the look on his face? I think I beat you out!"

Ciel feels as if he is in a strange kind of dream the likes of which Alice herself would have run from.

"Alois!" Ciel wants to ask the obvious question, are you mad? But he already knows the answer. He can only stand and complete the thought process that had begun with Robert's declaration and crystallized with the insane gleam in Alois' eyes as he hovered behind the bully with...what was it. A knife?

"Ciel, you looked a little worried back there." Alois chuckles and lets go of the statue to take the other boy's shoulders, peering into his face. "You seem a bit pale. Did I freak you out?"

Ciel's eyebrows twitch as if he had just been poked with a needle.

"What were you thinking? Did you think I was going to kill him?" Alois asks gently, as if trying calm a spooked horse.

"Were you?" Ciel is pleased that his voice is level and matches Alois’ bizarrely now-rational tone.

"Well, I did think I'd leave it up to you. I really wanted to, have wanted to for a long time, and he was just going on and on and on and...well, I don't like bullies, and I really don't like them talking about me behind my back...or in front of me...with their back so nicely exposed...so..."

Ciel wants no explanation. He does not want a long breakdown of Alois’ thought process at the second he nearly killed a boy his own age, how it followed his tenets of personal pride. None of that. At this point, all the matters to Ciel is that it end. If what Robert was saying was true, and there was very likely much truth in the words no matter how harshly framed they were for his purpose at the time, then Alois was in danger of expulsion at the very least.

"You  _will not kill him._ " His voice is firm, his one blue eye commanding and determined as he reaches his own hands up to pull Alois’ from his shoulders. This situation was so familiar all of the sudden...

_That day when we met. Alois threw Robert to the ground and was suffocating him before I told him to stop. Just how far would he have gone even then?_

"You said you wanted to be my power, but you are of no use to me or yourself if they take you forcibly from here. And they will. I don't need a rabid dog."

It is Alois’ turn to frown, his eyebrows drawing to a point and then relaxing, back and forth, as his mind struggles to decide whether being called a rabid dog in this situation is a compliment or an insult.

"Hey, I think  _rabid_  might be going a little too far. It's true I never attended obedience school..." He quirks a grin.

" _Alois_." Ciel's voice is somehow deeper, trying to match the stature of one who had any kind of authority in this place. Honestly, Alois’ enjoyment of every little moment, his flippant seeming-disregard for everything serious, has Ciel at a complete loss. How would it be possible to impress upon this mad child that discretion was essential when he had spent most of his adolescence giving the world the middle finger with both hands?

"Ciel..." Alois is suddenly calm. "Are you saying you want me to... _behave_? Is that it?"

The boy with the charcoal hair balks. Alois behaving...it seemed almost as unnatural a phrasing as "donkey boots" or "wise adult."

"Well, I can't behave. This place is a soul-killer, Ciel. You can look around and see it for yourself: The doe eyes of the little scurrying masses all scrambling for their portion of gruel, their little taste of education, being properly raised up to be a nice little factory worker or a cog. Or worse. Or worse...you know what I mean." His voice drops softly at the end as he see Ciel's indomitable gaze falter slightly. Then with a wide grin he points at his head, "it's your brain that keeps you sane in a place like this. Yours. Mine. It's part of what drew me to you, your mind, all of the furious thoughts you keep tucked away, protecting the inside. Well, this is how I protect my inside. When I don't have a brain like you, I have to have something..."

Ciel is struck by the irony of Alois’ words, that he sees his madness as a brand of sanity. Of all of the terrors that Ciel himself had suffered and continues to suffer through, how much worse has Alois’ life been that derangement is his only protection? At that moment Ciel realizes just how far gone Alois is...but he also conceives of the way his madness might yet be contained, possibly indefinitely.

"Alois, I order you to misbehave." Ciel says flatly.

The blond-haired boy blinks. His mouth shuts on whatever protestation he had been about to make at the perceived edict he saw forming in Ciel's mind. Alois searches that haughty blue eye for the joke, but there is none. He makes a show of sticking his pinky in his ear and wiggles it.

"I'm sorry, m'lord, I thought I just heard you tell me to misbehave..."

"I did. In fact, I did not tell you, I ordered it. Let that sink in fully." Ciel does not know how much time they have before Robert's unconscious body is found, before the bees begin to hum in their hive. He walks over to the lip of the large circular concrete base of the statue of St. Sebastian, the place where he has been finding solace in the face of his tormentors for two years. He sits on the ledge (careful not to roll into the ornamental flower bed), turns his legs to the side and then stands. He looks down at Alois as an Earl surveying his servant.

"I order you to misbehave in this fashion: You will continue to use your stealth to your heart's content - steal from the kitchen, break into the library, do anything you wish in the dead of night as long as you take excessive pains to see that you are not caught."

Alois’ eyebrows raise as all kinds of ideas form in his head. "Wait... _anything_?" Oh, stealing things in the night...like kisses from Ciel. He would like that. A lot. Wait, what were they talking about again?

"So long as you cannot be caught. Make them go mad searching out the guilty party, confuse and disorient them all you wish, so long as you may retain the upper hand." Ciel turns and paces.

The blond-haired boy considers this with a smile. He likes seeing Ciel's little feet trot upon the cement, his laces perfectly tied. What an adorable master. He enjoys gazing up at the tiny king delivering orders, but only because it  _is_  Ciel. "The upper hand...is this a lesson from your book?"

Ciel ignores the question and continues. "You will not kill anyone until I give the order. I may have need of pawns, and I can't have my own pieces waging war on each other. I am not ordering you to give up all physical action, however, there are limits to what is acceptable horseplay, and what is not. Generally speaking, if the action will cause a boy to bleed or go unconscious, it is too severe."

Alois’ lower lip curls out in a half-pout. "Is there any leeway on the blood thing? I mean, 'accidents happen,' right?"

Ciel glares at him in response. This may not work. It might not work at all. In fact, it could be that Alois will never follow any code but his own, ever. No matter how he proffered himself to be used as Ciel's power, it could have all been the shallow desires of a child at play, not something that could fill the needs of one trapped in a world of cruel adults. What Alois wants from him...well, Ciel is not sure he can yet fathom it, but it is abundantly clear that the blond boy has been attempting to form a singular attachment to him. And his attempts have been straightforward and bold, bold enough to have gotten Ciel's attention. And despite the sneer of his pride at such a worthless cause, they have shed a ray of light, if not hope, inside the darkness of his heart.

Ciel sighs. He looks down at Alois who is speaking about the commonplace occurrence of bloody noses, especially as the weather grows colder. Wordlessly he climbs down from his perch. There is a battle going on inside Ciel between his mind and his pride. In the middle is his heart, squeezed between both unyielding planes, and helpless to really affect the battle either way. Had Ciel not just seen Alois nearly kill a boy, there would be no current dilemma. They would have gone on with their day as any other (except that  _he_ did not come!) But Robert's words and Alois’ presentation of himself as a homicidal maniac have forced his hand.

Ciel puts his palms on Alois’ shoulders and the taller boy stops smirking at his blood jokes. He is also taken somewhat aback as Ciel actually pushes him to sit beneath the statue where he had just been standing. If his lofty approach did not work, then perhaps if he could make Alois see him eye to eye...

"I cannot do what I need to do if your independent actions cause you to be removed from this home." Ciel was taking a chance, making bold this truth, even though he had yet to really peer closely at why this was a truth at all. His mind tells him that this is the most efficient way to get Alois’ cooperation, but his pride is stinging, reeling, and fighting back. As a result, Ciel's fingers quaver slightly on the other's lapels.

The blond boy is silent. He can't imagine what is going on behind that serious visage holding his with such beautiful intensity, except that the trembling digits remind him of why he cannot ever ever leave this boy alone. He wants to take Ciel's fingers in his hand and kiss them.

"Ciel, I see where you are going with this. Ordering me to misbehave was...pretty brilliant, actually. I can do that with no problem, and I like the idea of being the sneaky little bastard who ruins everything in the darkness. But if you’re asking me to just lie around while others hurt you, either with their words or anything else, then...I can't do it. I cannot."

"You  _can_  do it if it complies with my orders. They exist for a more long-term goal." Ciel has never been more earnest in his life. He feels as though he is throwing pearls before swine, his finely-cared for pride in front of this common prostitute, but he cannot go back now.

"What long-term goal? What? Killing Faustus? Please tell me that's your goal." Alois grabs Ciel's shoulders with renewed excitement...which begins to die as Ciel breaks eye contact and looks away.

Kill Faustus? Ciel did want him dead but...to kill a man...here? It would be impossible to get away with it. Impossible. It was like every scenario he had ever gone through in his mind. If he tried to blow the whistle, tried to prove what was being done to him, then he would be exposed. Every boy, every adult at St. Sebastian's, and maybe beyond, would know what was taken from him. Or worse, he would not be believed. There was no way out, no way to exact retribution without sullying himself and his pride.

_Not if you use Alois..._

Ciel's mind latches onto this idea. It's what Alois wanted after all, wasn't it? To be Ciel's power, to do what Ciel could not or would not do? To be maneuvered into the perfect opportunity? Ciel had never killed before, but Alois could do it. Wanted to do it. Even if his stories about murdering two men had been exaggerated, Ciel is convinced that without his command to stop, Robert would now be dead which proved Alois was apt to the task of homicide. Why not use him, then? Give him what he wanted? There were ways it could be done, simply arranged. Faustus was a monster to Ciel, but he was still just a man who could bleed. Killing him would be so simple, and then it would all be over. His humiliation, his pain...all of it. If Alois took the fall for this murder, then Ciel could keep his hands clean and could rebuild his pride again. And Alois would have to take the fall because there was no guarantee that he could keep Alois out of it. Even if he could frame another boy, Alois would still be under suspicion because of his past history. The cleanest way to do it would be to simply remove both pieces from the board...permanently.

His mind and his pride rejoiced at this plan.  _Tell him what he wants. Give him what he wants. Use him and be done with them both. You could have this planned out in a day, and tomorrow Faustus could be dead!_

...And they would take Alois Trancy away. No, not Alois. Jim. Jim Macken. The boy who was orphaned, who lived by selling himself to disgusting pieces of trash like Claude Faustus every day. Who could not save a little brother who idolized him...who killed men who abused children...who came to St. Sebastian's Home for Boys and saw a boy like him...a boy who suffered. Who shared his pain, who laughed and giggled and swore...a boy who never brushed his hair or pulled up his socks. A boy who told him to eat his oatmeal and stole candy from the kitchen. A boy with candy-flavoured lips and warmth and arms that held, not hurt. And eyes that laughed because they would not cry...

That boy. He'd give that boy away?

He'd give away this piece, no, this irreverent, mischievous, outrageous and lively boy to a prison where they would shatter his mind for good? Where that madness, that has been growing, would undo him...force him into a place where they would hose him down until he screamed and leave him cold and alone in a wet cell to die of pneumonia or consumption? To put him in a world where they could do whatever they wanted with his body in shackles so he could not escape?

_Sebastian...did you really lead this boy to me just so that he could be sacrificed? Sacrificed like you were sacrificed? Did you save yourself, here, in this courtyard, just so that I would give him away?_

Alois sees Ciel falter. The smaller body begins to shake. The grip on his lapels gets stronger by degrees as if his mind is swirling towards a precipice like water to a dark drain. His head is bowed, his face hidden behind an eyepatch and a curtain of charcoal hair.

"Ciel?" His voice is soft because Ciel is fragile. It was his pride that gave him an untouchable air of superiority, but his pride appears to be sinking.

Right now. At this moment, Ciel knows that he truly has Alois’ life in his hands. His choice, right now...could decide a boy's fate, his or Alois. Right now the only paths Ciel could see were the one where he lived and prospered and was rescued but Alois was destroyed, and one where they both continued to exist in this hell. Unless he could devise another plan...

A plan to rid them of Claude Faustus and escape this world. A plan where they could live freely? Was it even possible?

"Alois...I...cannot allow you to be taken. It is the only long-term plan that I have...at the moment."

Ciel's voice is soft, but somehow it still rings with dignity.

Alois frowns. This is Ciel's inability to take action coming right around again. He wants to enforce the status quo, only this time he'll make Alois a witness to the Headmaster's brutality. He'll have to curtsy and smile while Faustus rakes his fingernails down Ciel's scarred back, pinch and prod all of the softness of his body, bruise the ribs that show through his thin chest. There is no way he can, or will, do it. Now that he's felt Ciel by his side and kissed his lips, imagining anyone,  _anyone_  having that privilege is simply unacceptable.

But how can he make Ciel understand that? This boy who has been playing to his rigid sense of pride and sacrificing his soul in the process?

"Ciel...you can't order me if you aren't going to use me. It's not fair, you know." It's not a flippant tone, either. Alois isn't joking. He's actually almost angry. Is this what it means to be in love with a boy in a cage? No, this is what it means to be in love with  _Ciel_ , a boy whose stubbornness and pride rivaled his own. "Even you have to admit it. Technically we're both just powerless if you don't..."

"Shut up."

Alois looks down at the shroud of grey hair bowed before him. There is a different nuance to this particular command. A very new tone. The hands on his lapels squeeze so hard that the diminutive knuckles become white. They convulse against him. His entire body is drawn tight like a bow string.

"I don't care what you think about this, Alois. Do not attempt to confuse the issue. I know what you need to do to keep from getting thrown out, and you are going to do what I say and limit your acts of lunacy so that it does not happen. Do you understand?"

Alois wants to laugh at Ciel for the high horse he is trying to climb upon. Honestly, he wants his pristine little chess pieces to just stay in that box, all locked up and useless in the dusty old library so no one can challenge him. Look nice in the background, Alois, but don't go  _too_ crazy. And suddenly Alois is truly angry. If Ciel pushes him to the side like everyone else, then what was the real point of this relationship? Can he really be this attached to someone who would just as easily keep him on a leash for the sake of niceties like the rest of the world?

Alois takes the charcoal boy's wrists in his hands and roughly removes them from his blazer. "Ciel, you get to order me around when you decide to take  _action._  What am I to you? Do I really look like a dog? Heel! Sit! Arf arf, my lord!" Alois even barks the part. It's a nice, loud, proper bark for a proper little pet. His paler blue eyes are critical and he raises his chin in defiance even as Ciel's downturned face is obscured by his charcoal colored hair.

"Maybe you can live like that, heeling and sitting for that fucking bastard, but I don't heel or sit for anyone. Not. Anyone..."

"I said,  _shut up_!" Ciel's hands are balled into fists, Alois can't see his face, but he expected a reaction for that one. Yes. Good.  _Take a nice long look at the truth_ , he thinks...but then he freezes. He heard the other boy say something just now. It was small, muffled. It was far away.

"What did you say?"

Ciel's pride and his mind had been so caught up in a tug of war, that they never suspected the sneak attack from the underdog. In a brilliant maneuver by his heart, Ciel's pride and his mind are both sent spinning to the ground, defeated for the two seconds he can manage to say it clearly this time.

"I said, I need you."

Alois sputters. "Wait...come again?"

Ciel looks up, and Alois’ mouth shuts like a wooden box and locks up completely. The other boy's face...the cold mask is gone. Utterly...just gone. In its place is all of Ciel with his fear and his loneliness and sadness. There is a boy who has not cried for years, who has languished in darkness. For a split second Ciel's legs buckle. He is not used to leading with this most hidden and neglected organ, and when his pride and his intellect return, he knows he will feel like the greatest fool that had ever lived...but he cannot risk this.

 _No. I will not sacrifice this boy. Living in hell with him...it is tolerable. It is tolerable._ There is no sure path, but this: the path of least resistance which at least offered him some solace. There it was. He had said it. To take it back would be worse than having revealed it to himself or to Alois in the first place.

Alois catches Ciel before he falls. He wraps his arms around the boy, clutching him now as if he would slip beneath the surface of the ocean without it.

"I heard you say it...I just..." Oh...and like that, Alois’ anger is melted away. Needed? He is... _needed_?

Ciel can feel Alois’ warm shoulder on his forehead. So warm. If he were to ever lose this...

"Follow those orders, Alois." It is hard to sound commanding with his armor momentarily shattered. Little does he know how effective his unarmed strike is to the heart of the one who holds him.

Alois can smell Ciel's hair. It is lavenderlike and soft. He is hugging Ciel, and Ciel isn't sliding a knife into his chest, but he is all the same. Why couldn't Alois see it before? Ciel's pride always goes before him. Always. Since it was all he showed the world, Alois forgot that sometimes it was only a facade. Like right now. For the charcoal-haired boy to be this desperate to hold onto him...well, couldn't Alois incorporate into his personal code an order to keep from getting kicked out? For Ciel's sake? It could be like,  _Alois, you are a proper idiot if you don't steal a kiss from Ciel for this in the next twenty-four hours, but in order to have it, you have to not break a boy or make him bleed._  And the next day, repeat. Repeat repeat repeat. He could do something like that, yes. For Ciel; for the gift of being  _needed_  again...he could do it.

_Luca...I'm not going to fail this time. I'm not going to fail._

The moment passes, although Alois would have had the moment last much longer. He reluctantly and slowly releases the body as Ciel finds his footing.

Putting the mask back in place had been...so much harder than Ciel expected. It wasn't so much a mask but a dam to hold back a flood. He could not let that flood be released or it would truly wash away everything he had worked so hard to keep strong. The charcoal-haired boy is grateful that Alois cannot see him struggling to get it all back together. It means that when he steps away from him his back is straight. His gaze is level. His face is set.

"And now that that has been addressed, it is time to perform damage control."

Just like that. Alois quirks a sideways smile through the tears that he is glad Ciel appears not to notice. There he is, that little emperor. His eye has slid away, a fist at his chin, one finger resting in the little hollow there below his bottom lip. Such a kissable place. He's thinking. He went from the closest thing Alois had ever seen to a breakdown to this, leaving Alois so wanting to cuddle him that it was a painful sensation in his chest.

Ciel is immersed in this new puzzle. "It will all depend on whether or not someone has found Robert unconscious already. He did not see you, and boys were letting out of classes. Robert is a known bully; he would have any number of enemies willing to go for the back because they could not stand up to him from the front..."

Alois blinks, wooing words and thoughts scattering away as he catches the implication. "Hey now. I can stand up to him from the front..."

Ciel looks up at Alois with an expression of boredom bordering exasperation. "You are irrelevant in this equation. I am seeking every solution to  _keep_  you from being a suspect, so if it seems  _less_  likely that you would have done it, that is  _good_."

Alois blinks and then gets it. "Ohhh I see, so because I've taken him on from the front on most other occasions, almost stabbing him in the back makes me seem innocent. Good call on my part, am I right?" He giggles.

It is Ciel's turn to blink. Stabbing him...in the back. He had seen a glint of something at the very last moment. "Robert may believe you are responsible, but if he cannot prove it, then it's just one boy's word against his...although, if I have learned correctly, your word in these cases is getting flimsier."

Alois feels a flutter of excitement as Ciel steps into his personal space. Hug now? Kiss now? He hadn't broken anyone since he tacitly accepted Ciel's order...

"Let me see the weapon," he demands silently.

Alois’ pout makes Ciel raise one eyebrow over his eye patch. Just the one. It's adorable. The blond-haired boy coughs and understands the sudden closeness. It is for discretion. They are still in the courtyard, after all. He reaches into his blazer pocket and pulls out his weapon. It is a standard iron butter knife that has been broken to half its size, easily concealable, and the edge shining and ground down sharply. The tip is chiseled to a deadly point.

Ciel's indrawn breath is not easy to hold back. Alois really could have killed with this. Moreover, he could kill anyone with it at virtually any time. This boy had told tales of going for the throat, but this weapon could also be shoved into an eye-socket, a kidney...it is a true inmate's shiv specifically designed  _not_  for show,  _not_  to intimidate, but to carry out an execution or defend himself with deadly force from a position of surprise.

Exactly how much time had Alois spent in prison before he was transferred here?

"You need to get rid of this. Right now."

Alois’ face snaps up. "What? This is like...basic survival equipment!"

"Alois, your average 'inmate' here is four feet and weighs five stone. Your head weighs more. But if anyone finds this on you, in with your things, it could be the end of you here just upon those grounds." Ciel looks up at him with total seriousness, glances back to the north building and hazards a look up through his lashes at the windows. He swipes the deadly instrument from Alois’ hand, reaches over, and deposits it in the shallow, dying plants inside the round of concrete beneath the statue of St. Sebastian. Ciel only takes as much time as he needs to feel the bite of the dirt under his fingernails (he detests the feeling of dirt under his nails) and then he sweeps a bit of soil over it for good measure. At a glance he cannot tell that anything has been disturbed, and as long as no one has seen it and it is far away from Alois’ blazer pocket, it would serve for now. No one was likely to do any gardening until early spring, at which point, if found, it would be rusty and perhaps unidentifiable as a weapon.

Alois stares at the burial ground for his most trusted companion. He does not fight the compulsion to take it back again, beginning to dig into the decaying plant with determination bordering on hysteria. There was no such thing as a child's jail. He had been put in a place with big, grown men, and they all looked at him like he was meat. How much had he suffered before he could make his first weapon? Ciel's explanation did little to assuage his need for that comforting presence.

"Alois?"

Ciel tries to take Alois’ arm like a parent pulling a child away from a puppy in a pound.

Alois cannot leave it here unless he knows exactly... _exactly_  where it is. He might need it tomorrow. Later on. In ten minutes. This kind of vulnerability...how did the rest of them live with it?

Ah, there! Alois’ finger slides along the deadly edge. The pain is the kind that makes one shiver, not flinch. So small but so effective. Here it was, and it wasn't going anywhere. As the comforting feeling of his hidden weapon soothes the sudden abandonment, he looks up to see Ciel staring at him, at the lunacy there, right beneath the surface. It's a kind of fearful and concerned stare and it's beautiful. So, Ciel had this side to him too...

So smart, Ciel. He had a point; getting caught with his makeshift knife would be bad (not that he ever planned to get caught with it. He had been in a prison of thieves and murderers and rapists and none of them had ever found it but the hard way.) But knowing where it was ( _exactly_  where it was) could maybe help him part with it...for now.

Alois pulls his hands from the dirt. His finger is bleeding. Such a pretty color against the grey of everything.

"Alois..." Ciel takes out his handkerchief and clasps it around Alois’ hand to stop the blood, a strange kind of concentration and concern in his eye.

Alois likes it. He smiles, and just like that, the madness is gone. He covers Ciel's hands with his other dirty hand, tenderly, gently...

"Are you going to propose now?"

"Tch. Idiot."

Ciel's expression becomes annoyed as his fingers pull away as if he had just been burned, but Alois thinks he can see a blush rising to the other boys' cheeks.

Ciel's back straightens, his pride firmly in place. "Are you sure you don't want to crawl into the flowerbed and sleep with it?"

Alois knows he means it to be condescending, but he really opened himself up for so many salacious comebacks that Alois is appeased.

"No, I got it. It's okay. I'll just carry a nice piece of paper from now on. It'll be fine. Paper cuts are a real bitch, Ciel. No one will want to mess with me..." Alois jokes. "Okay, tell me the plan. I can lie like a pro, believe it."

Ciel fixes his eye on Alois and relaxes. And then he takes a deep breath.

"Come with me and keep your voice down. Do and say exactly what I tell you..."

The two boys: one small and thin, his blazer pressed so that the shoulders stand crisp and proud, the shorts a bit too long on his frame, charcoal hair brushed, collar tidy, walks and speaks low and conspiratorially to the taller, tanner, fitter boy with the unkempt golden curls. His eyes twinkle as he listens to Ciel's plan with a mischievous grin. His shirt is open, blazer rumpled, socks falling to his ankles. They are a strange pair, but with their heads inclined towards each other, they almost appear as if they had come as a set to exploit the definition of "opposites." They are two ends of a magnet that cannot overcome nature and are, inexorably, drawing closer to each other.

* * *

 

By the time they returned to the building, Ciel had come up with one plan and two backups. Robert had, indeed, been found and was taken to the clinic to nurse a sizable bump and headache with chipped ice in a wash cloth. It was a testament to the hardness of his head, Ciel thought, because from his vantage point, Alois had nearly knocked the bully's teeth out from the back.

Alois supplied Ciel with some necessary information, however, such as which other boys were Robert's routine targets. Once established, Ciel selected the largest boy, a rotund specimen named Virgil Applebottom, and offered him Alois’ dinner dessert for a week to report, if asked, that he saw Alois run from his last class to the boy's lavatory. (This was, in part, partially verifiable as Alois had, in the presence of several witnesses, run from his last class. The truth of the speed was to find Ciel and rejoice with him over the reprieve of his creepy statue and to assure him that he had learned a few words with confidence in his "baby's" reading class that morning. The fact that it was turned into an emergency lav visit for the sake of an alibi was only slightly jarring to Alois’ pride since he was notorious for waiting until the last minute to go, displeased about the interruption it caused to whatever criminal acts he was engaged in.)

Robert, as Ciel predicted, said nothing. This was a relief and a worry because it proved to the charcoal-haired tactician that the bully might be thick, but he was not completely stupid.

The denizens of the home were rounded up and given a general lecture about how "boys being boys" might be fine comportment for  _some_  boys in  _some_  institutions (Such as St. Job's), but that this would not be the case at St. Sebastian's. Ciel stood in line with the rest of them and prayed that Alois would stop fidgeting and manage not to giggle at his superiority for the fifteen minutes it would take for the lecture to conclude. To his surprise, not only did Alois accomplish the feat (though he could not help the fidgeting), he also succeeded in not to making eye contact with Ciel the entire time.

Later, when certain boys were questioned, Virgil's love of dessert proved efficacious in the overall clearing of Alois as a suspect. Ciel was not even asked about the situation since his general stature and behaviour made the prospect of him being the culprit highly unlikely.

* * *

 

And so it was that after four hours of sleep, Alois and Ciel were back in the library. This time, however, much to Alois' disappointment, Ciel had told him to bring himself and his primer to the table to prove that there was hope for him among the general reading and writing populace of England.

Alois sourly slapped the ugly, green-covered book onto the worn wood, shaking the candle holder and causing the flame to sputter unhappily. The book was a horrid piece of literature called  _The Victoria Primer; or first book for children._ It had a terrible woodcarving illustration of what was likely supposed to be a young boy, (but appearing more like a middle-aged man) happily reading a book as he walks along a road with a bucolic background of a rustic tree and house with a chimney. Perhaps the "boy" was walking to school. Perhaps he was walking to his mindless, driveling job in some horrible factory to put widgets in boxes until his brain loosened and fell out. Perhaps that was why the "boy" looked more like an aging man.

"Ciel, I hate this book. Swear to me you will read me more of that pirate book for this." Alois grumpily looks up from the object of his hatred, fully prepared to bring on a whine like no other, when he beholds Ciel, sitting so regally in his hard-backed chair, absolutely  _swaddled_  in a comforter. It is not only wrapped around him, hiding his arms and hands in the folds, but his legs are gone too. In fact, Ciel himself probably doesn't even realize that when he managed to get into the chair with all of that volume it had hiked up a bit behind him so that it frames his face as well. He is the visage of a tiny, unamused king in the shape of one of those Russian nesting dolls. The small one. The very smallest one.

"You are receiving my chess education for proof of your reading aptitude." Ciel responds.

Alois sticks his tongue out. He should know better than to tease Ciel, but it is hard to take him seriously when he looks so...so soft and squishable on his throne...but...

"You said you needed me."

Ciel is thankful for the dim light that can mostly conceal the blush rising to his cheeks. His blanket papoose wiggles because he'd like to slam his hand on the table...even though he cannot, buried as it is against the library chill.

"Don't say unnecessary things! I know what I said." He finds it supremely difficult not to pout at the skittering giggles coming from across the table. This  _boy_! Does he have no concept at all of what it took to reveal such embarrassing things? "Do you want to impress me or not? You have not been able to shut up about it all evening. Of course, I would be happy to read my own book  _by myself_ tonight..."

Alois calms himself, makes a show of clearing his throat and then bows his head, looking up at Ciel through the lining of golden curls and praying his act of humility can make it to the good part. The good part being whenever he has Ciel in his arms, kissing his cheek, and getting his reward for not killing anyone since their afternoon conversation.

Ciel sighs. "If you can read three pages  _without any form of complaint_ , then I will read to you."

Alois tosses his head and smiles. "Yes, my lord!"

The  _Victoria Primer_  is, indeed, awful. The first page consists of such riveting sentences as: "he is," "I go," "go in," and "do so." It gets only slightly better with: "It is to me" and "I am to be" and "So do ye." But Alois reads it. Haltingly, slowly, with his finger on the words to sound them out. His eyes peer intently at the blackened hieroglyphs as if each one held the key to the hidden booty on Treasure Island. While it is jarring to hear the English language read with such hesitant force, Ciel must admit that he is impressed. Alois had taken his offer very seriously; the charcoal-haired boy had never seen such acute focus from beneath that sunny hair. It softened him enough that, after not three but four read pages of no complaints and honest work, he nods and smiles slightly.

"You are impressed?" Alois hops to his knees on his chair so he can lean across the table, practically coming nose to nose with the smaller scholar.

The Ciel bundle leans back to accommodate his personal space.

"I admit I am...somewhat impressed."

The blond-haired boy throws up his arms in a victory gesture, conveniently tossing the primer somewhere across the room.

"So, you will teach me some chess?"

"You might be able to at least learn the basic moves," Ciel says dismissively, looking away.

"Tomorrow night! Tomorrow. Right now, pirates, please. Some pirates. And no more tables; I can't sit still. Please, Ciel, please..."

* * *

 

Ciel's bundling is transferred to the corner of the library, safe in its stacks and concealing darkness. Alois revels in the attention, the story. He doesn't like it when the narrator changes from Jim Hawkins to Dr. Livesy. This is partly because Ciel's voice doesn't suit the older character, and partly because Jim Hawkins is becoming a hero to Alois-a boy competing in a dangerous adult world of pirates-and the good doctor just sounds pretentious and shallow in parts as most adults do. When Ciel finally closes the book and declares that they are thoroughly done for the night, Alois is strangely content.

The two have been sitting hip to hip for an hour. Ciel has glanced over several times to see whether the other boy was even still awake as he read; this silence was strange for him. When he closes the book he turns his head to scrutinize Alois’ face in the dying candle glow. His face is tilted, hair mussed, but his expression is strangely blissful. Was this the same boy who had been prepared to kill a boy today? Yes. It was the same.

"Do you really enjoy the book that much?" Ciel says finally, the silence too thick.

"I do, yeah, but...I enjoy it more because you’re reading it to me."

Ciel snorts softly and Alois’ smile broadens. There is a comfortable, companionable atmosphere in the library. In his mind's eye Alois imagines that a thin, straw bridge has been built between them over turbulent waters today. For Alois it was as if he could, if he tread very carefully, hazard that distance. Carefully.

"Ciel?" Alois’ voice becomes hesitatingly questioning.

"Yes?"

"When we were kids, I mean, when we were little...we had normal lives, right? Once upon a time?" Alois looks up at him and Ciel can see Alois’ own mask of perpetual humor melt away in the reverence of such powerful words as "once upon a time."

Ciel unconsciously touches his eye patch. A time when he had parents. When he could see out of two eyes. A time like that?

"Probably."

"I’ve forgotten what it was like. Completely. I haven't got the first idea what 'normal' is anymore. I figure I probably was a pain in the ass. My mother likely thought I was a horrid example for Luca."

"She likely did." Ciel agrees.

"Wow. That was a little too fast!" Alois blurts indignantly and then relaxes when he catches the fleeting ghost of a smile on Ciel's lips. "Well, you were probably the perfect child. Do you remember what it was like?"

Ciel gazes into the darkness. He squints through it and Alois thinks he is trying to find that charred past, an image of his mother and father, the way he himself had done a thousand, a million times.

The charcoal-haired boy takes a deep breath. "Sometimes." And then he jerks as Alois suddenly takes his hand with earnestness.

"Don't forget it, Ciel. Okay? Hang onto that, whatever it is. Don't forget it." Alois bites his lip. "Don't forget it, what that 'normal'ness feels like. The truth is...I need you, too. I need you. Someday, when we get out of here, you have to remember it, to teach it to me."

Ciel's eyebrows draw together. "Teach you what?"

"What it's like...to live. Normally. Not as a cog or a sheep but...you know what I mean. How it was back when we were little."

_When we were loved..._

Ciel understands it all now quite clearly. Alois Trancy was a lunatic because he had raised himself too young in a lunatic's world of pain and loss. He was unpredictable because Ciel expected him to have a civilized boy's morality and a civilized understanding. But Alois was like a wild creature unleashed and barely kept in check. Worse than a beast, because pain and humiliation and the normal behaviour modification tools of society no longer worked on him. And he didn't even realize it. Only with Ciel was Alois Trancy able to find his direction, and in the nick of time Ciel had realized it. And cared enough to act on it.

They did need each other.

Ciel takes a deep breath and lets it out as he speaks. "One thing at a time. We will see if you can pass my chess instruction first. I won't go easy on you, so prepare yourself."

Alois feels a little shiver run up and down his spine at the note of command in his companion's voice.

"Oh please, Lord Phantomhive. Please...be as rough as you can."

Ciel finds himself flailing as Alois latches onto him like a spider monkey and hugs him with all of the passion he had kept bottled up during the reading of  _Treasure Island_.

" _Control_  yourself!"

"Never!"

The blankets become suddenly twisted up in Ciel's struggle for freedom and Alois’ clinging. In three minutes Ciel is panting and breathless and practically astride the taller boy, pinning him to the stacks with two layers of blanket separating them. Alois looks up with a smirk at the furious gaze.

"Now you're getting the hang of it."

"Don't...touch me...so...freely." Ciel is out of breath. He is irritated at the pawing and Alois’ triumphant smile despite the fact that he had come out on top. Literally.

"Kiss me, Ciel." Alois requests politely, almost civilly, from his humble position.

"Tch. Earn it." The charcoal-haired boy responds without even thinking about it. He is very tired. Tired and out of breath and extremely hot and cold at the same time. The movement beneath him proves that Alois is emerging from the blanket pile fairly easily, of course. What a ridiculous waste of energy. As Ciel raises a hand to wipe his brow with his night shirt sleeve, he feels something wet and warmer attack his cheek.

"Stolen." Alois giggles and then gags as Ciel aims his shirt-covered fist into his mouth instead.

_to be continued..._

 


	6. Red

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ciel is worried about the return of Faustus, but Alois won't let him suffer alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a great darkness in this chapter, but it does get balanced out by the end. Warnings for rape triggers. Warnings for excessive adorable fluff.

 

* * *

_It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope._

-Niccolo Machiavelli  _The Prince_

* * *

**Chapter 6: Red**

"I've brought you a present, Ciel."

His heart skips a beat and then the little hairs all over his body stand on end. Ciel's stomach plunges with dread at a phrase most young boys would long to hear. Unlike gifts given by anyone else in the world, presents from Headmaster Faustus always, always came with a price.

Ciel makes no movement to lift the cover of the box on the Headmaster's desk. He can almost see the writhing and swirling of venomous snakes inside, longing to twist around him, bite into his flesh, pump their poison into him slowly...slowly...

"Headmaster, you shouldn't have. My birthday isn't until December." The words from his lips are dead and lifeless. He cannot summon the strength to add any flippant derision; it's all he can do to keep himself from shaking.

"There is no need to thank me. It seems sad that your birthday should be so close to Christmas. Where is the fun when your gifts come seemingly all at once? And this one is special. Here, allow me."

The presence of the tall Headmaster behind him causes the charcoal-haired boy's heart to pound; He stares with apprehension as Claude Faustus reaches around him and lifts the box top.

It is not full of snakes. Instead, something soft and red lies within its tissue paper depths. Slowly, his tormentor's hands raise the mysterious article, allowing it to unfurl like a bloody flag before Ciel's eyes. His natural curiosity has been killed. All he feels is a pit of fear in the bottom of his stomach; even this seemingly innocuous piece of cloth will have some terrible purpose for him.

"It is from Japan. A kimono of finest silk. One of my colleagues brought it back for me from a recent trip." The headmaster's tone is conversational.

Ciel has heard of kimonos. He has seen one in a book in the library. It is a woman's garment that looks like an elaborate robe. This one is red, trimmed with white. The pattern is of a butterfly trapped within a spiderweb. Such a fitting image.

"Too bad. I don't think it's my size..."

Ah, the game. This cruel game. As long as he can still continue to play it, he can believe that someday he can win it, be free of this place, make a new beginning. All he has to do is continue to play it well...

The headmaster makes a small sound of amusement. Ciel doesn't have to look at him to know that those yellow eyes are making their own calculations of his body, fitting the kimono onto his frame mentally...or imagining worse.

"Well, let's find out, shall we?"

Ciel shakes his head. "I will not put that on..." There must be a limit to this. Somehow, there  _must_. After everything else, to have to wear clothing almost exclusively for a girl? Is he not even allowed to keep a scrap of masculine pride?

"Oh? Hmm..." Faustus makes a show of peering at the kimono, thoughtful. "Is it the color? I admit I was surprised by it. However, I hear that red is symbolic of good fortune in other countries. Enticed yet?"

Such thinly-veiled sarcasm...

Ciel turns around. He levels his one blue eye at the demon in man’s clothing. "There is nothing that would 'entice' me to wear such a thing. If you are so enamored of it, wear it yourself."

Ciel believes he is still on even footing in this game, but Claude Faustus's next words chill him to his roots:

"Hmmm, nothing? That is a shame." He holds up the kimono, staring at its bloody contours and speaks again without turning his eyes. "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps this color is all wrong for you. It would clash against your skin and your hair. It requires a blond to fill it satisfactorily. What do you think?"

Ciel pales. He feels his forehead begin to break into a sweat. That...bastard. There was no way he was insinuating that Alois...but Faustus didn't know. How could he know? It was impossible. There could have been some rumors that he had been spending time with Trancy, but Ciel had confessed his attachment to Alois alone and no one else. The thought of that boy somehow becoming his stand-in in this game raised both a concern for Alois’ continued safety and chagrined Ciel’s pride that the rude creature was somehow a suitable replacement. And both sentiments, compassion and jealousy, could occupy the same moment.

It was a cheap trick, but not without merit. Was Faustus bluffing? If he was, the next few seconds would determine how far Ciel's affection for the effervescent blond had been discovered.

"If it's true that I no longer suit your taste, I would be more than happy to conclude my French lessons, headmaster." Ciel is very pleased with the delivery. There had been almost a bored quality to it that would not betray even the slightest iota of the real anger, frustration, and anxiety he was experiencing now. Alois Trancy was not the only one who could lie convincingly when necessary. He even manages to hold his head high as he turns to walk boldly to the door of the study.

When his fingers touch the doorknob, his heart pounding in his throat, he wonders if it would really be so easy to escape...just, open the door and walk out...

The headmaster's large hand slams against the doorframe above Ciel's head as his lips whisper very close to his ear. "Abandon your lessons now? That is a blow to my own pride; I never leave anything half taught..."

And then there is darkness...

Ciel comes to himself in a prone position, his back against something soft. Immediately his arms try to lift him up to examine his surroundings, but he is tangled in a mass of cloth.

When he looks down, he can see his body obscenely covered with the red kimono, tied tightly at his waist with a black sash. It leaves almost nothing to the imagination; it is half opened at the bottom, and the white trim rides almost halfway down his arms. In fact, the only part of him that cannot be clearly viewed in this garment at the moment are his privates.

How? How did this happen? Just a second ago he had been standing, fully aware, at the door. Was he drugged? Faustus had never drugged him before, but there was a first time for everything. And whose bed was this? Surely not the Headmaster's. Hadn't they just been in his private study at St. Sebastian's? There were plenty of hard chairs in that room, and a desk, and Ciel had experienced them all on multiple occasions, but never a bed. Somehow this was all wrong. Wrong in so many ways.

...Dressed in a woman's whorish red garment, on a bed. Like a common prostitute...

"No!"

He sits up and abruptly his upward movement is impeded by Claude Faustus' tall frame. He is not completely unclothed; the headmaster still maintains his crisp white shirt, but his normally impeccably-starched tie is gone and the collar is open a few buttons. His trousers are still in place, but his glasses have disappeared.

Claude Faustus has unnervingly yellow eyes. They are inhuman. Unleashed from their glass confines and crouched over the charcoal-haired boy as he is now, Ciel can see only a feral predator; a creature that will rend his flesh and devour his soul without a second thought.

Ciel gasps.

Faustus smiles, and this smile is beyond horrible. There are no words, even in Ciel's mind, to describe his disgust and  _fear_  of this moment. When the demonic headmaster lifts Ciel's trembling hand from the coverlet and kisses the back of it, the boy is certain he will vomit. It cannot be like this. It  _cannot_. Every worst nightmare that has blossomed in Ciel's tiny breast is coming true: there is no way he can reclaim his pride in a situation like this. There is no way to even play the game like this.

"What is the matter, Ciel? Are you surprised? But why? You knew, someday, we would reach this place. To a point of no return where you would give everything to me…"

Faustus' words are cruel. They dig down with deadly accuracy and impale the fleeting hope that had labored once to live--that he could someday escape St. Sebastian's. Rebuild his life with his pride intact.

"No..." His voice is not a statement. It sounds like a plea, even to Ciel's own ears, and he detests and despises himself.

"Ahh, but we are far beyond 'no' now, wouldn't you say?"

As Faustus leans over him, his tongue extending to lathe a bare nipple with a moan of delight, Ciel finally galvanizes himself for action, the first time he has ever done so. He kicks upwards as hard as he can manage into the headmaster's crotch. At the same moment, he tries to roll away to the edge of the bed and onto the floor.

But Claude Faustus is not nearly as undone by Ciel's efforts as the boy planned, and he becomes hopelessly tangled in the red kimono with the spider web and trapped butterfly pattern before he can escape. In spite of his pride, he cries out as Faustus roughly grabs his wrists and hoists them over his head, pressing them easily with one hand to the bed. His snake-yellow eyes meet Ciel's openly-terrified blue one.

"You are about to give me everything, Ciel. It is in your nature. You don't know what to do without this..." Claude's fingernails, which have been honed to freakishly sharp points, beautifully score the tender flesh of his stomach, dragging a bitten-off cry from the charcoal-haired boy. "You have reached the moment of truth when this illusion of a game between us disappears entirely and you realize what you are to me. A pleasurable pastime, nothing more.  _You_  are the game, Ciel Phantomhive, and when I am done playing, when there is nothing left of you, _I will throw you away..."_

Ciel can't even make a response. Nothing will function. Nothing. His brain, his heart, his body...they all stand mutely, watching him fall. There is not an echo of humanity worth preserving left in this shell. Still, As Claude Faustus suddenly turns him onto his stomach, he tries to find purchase on the pillow, to pull himself away, but the kimono is being lifted up. A heavy weight straddles him, his body is roughly opened, and then a spear of pain obliterates his universe into a million shining, sparkling shards. They twinkle once in an unknown light source, and then fall away to ruin in the deep darkness...

Ciel wakes up with a heart-rending cry of unutterable humiliation, pain, despair...

"Ciel,  _Ciel!_!"

It is a loud, whispered word. There is movement all around him. In complete disorientation Ciel kicks out and hits something solid. A kernel of kamikaze-like rage energizes him further. He will not go down without a fight. Not this time. He thrashes his arms out and slams against it again. It feels good, this sensation. He is battering a body. Claude Faustus? Himself? His whole disgusting, pitiful, wasted life?

It is three more kicks and a punch before Ciel's mind finally begins to work.

He is in his bed, in his nightshirt, not a kimono. It is dark in the room. It is not Claude Faustus he had been kicking and hitting...

Ciel's chest heaves rapidly, his heart pounding to explode as he finally lays still.

It was a dream. It was a bloody  _dream_. None of that had been real. His pride, his position in the miserable game...it is all still intact. He is in his own bed and it is night time.

* * *

**Before…**

It had been three nights since he and Alois had been in the library. This was owing to the magnificent timing of Lloyd Wright's amazing trip down the staircase of the west building which ended in cuts, bruises, a broken arm and a solid crack on the head. (Alois was completely blameless in this unfortunate accident. Nevertheless, Ciel had cause to remind Alois what might happen if he did not keep his own shoe laces tied.) Every night for the past three nights someone had been coming to Lloyd's pathetic moans to take his temperature and provide analgesics for pain. As a result, the pair had to resort to waiting until the nighttime coast was clear, and there was no guarantee when that would be.

In the meantime, the days passed. Despite Alois’ growing frustration that they could not have their library alone time, he continued to stick Siamese-twin-close to Ciel. In the afternoons, under the statue of St. Sebastian, Ciel would read...and be interrupted constantly by Alois’ attempts to do the same from his hideous primer.

The charcoal-haired boy would glare at the blond-haired boy each time he flopped himself or his book over Ciel's arm, breaking his concentration, to ask for help in sounding out a word, but Ciel never turned away Alois’ questions. His capacity for patience had expanded in volume a hundred times since the first afternoon they met. The trade for Alois’ inherent annoyingness at times was his company. It was bright and warm and devoted, and it was worth it.

Still, in those three days there had not been one visit from Claude Faustus. Ciel lived in a state of semi-permanent dread of his return, more than usual. In a way, nothing and everything had changed for the prideful boy. On top of the apprehension of future abuse, Ciel had to worry about what steps Claude Faustus would take to level the playing field, since his bold maneuver to pull down the statue of St. Sebastian had failed. Attempting to anticipate his opponent's move while fearing Alois’ reaction to it, occupied most of his free time.

The longer Faustus did not show up, the more anxiety steeped inside Ciel's heart. What would Alois do if the headmaster appeared here? When they first met, he had walked away from Alois into that horrific world with his back straight, and Alois had let him go. But things had been different then, and even Ciel had to admit that the bonds between them had grown. Alois had nearly killed a boy who had been tormenting him. If Alois made a scene, then Faustus would surely catch on. He'd use Alois somehow in the future, take Ciel's own pawn away, and that was only calculating the loss from a purely strategic point of view. Any other consideration...well, he had dealt with that already. Alois could not be taken away. Not now. That was that.

As for Alois, while Ciel's blond counterpart had been following his orders to keep his violent streak under wraps, it was much easier to accomplish now that most of the boys were already terrified of him. Even Robert kept his distance. Still, Alois’ protection was not iron-clad. Not from the aura of Robert's discontent, at least. On the rare occasions when Robert would make eye contact with the blue-eyed boy, Ciel was unhappy to admit a certain chill deep in his stomach; Robert did not look at him like a bully anymore. There was something much deeper and harsher and primal about his hatred, something Ciel could not readily put a finger on. It disturbed him, but he gave no outward hint of it. His mask was still firmly in place to the rest of the world: he could not and would not be alarmed or bothered by the petty concerns of stupid boys...

The shadow of the statue of St. Sebastian was Ciel's respite. He had felt at home there for two years. As the weather began to get cooler, wetter, it would be harder to simply sit here. This, also, had Ciel concerned.

* * *

**Yesterday...**

Ciel's mind was pregnant with a particularly acute sense of foreboding. His eyes had been resting on the same words of the same page for at least a half an hour as he sat on the concrete ledge under the statue of St. Sebastian with perfect posture. He could not read anymore, and the story Alois had been telling him fell on deaf ears.

_What if that door opens, right now? Will Alois betray us both with his madness? If the headmaster finds out anything...anything..._

"So, I told him, 'you idiot, that's not his cock, that's a cork!' and, shit, we laughed so hard for about an hour..."

Ciel blinked into reality upon the end of that sentence. He looked over at Alois who was laying on his stomach next to him on the ledge, his feet swinging in the air with a piece of licorice protruding from his mouth. Like Ciel, his primer had been open but Alois wasn't interested in reading.

"That is exceedingly vulgar," Ciel mumbled, a look of disgust crossing his features.

"If it's  _vulgar_  it's  _hilarious_ , Ciel. That's the point of a dirty joke." He tilted his head and chewed idly, "but, you didn't hear the joke, did you?"

Ciel didn't answer. There were too many things on his mind to further humour Alois’ ill-mannered comedy.

"How...did you do it?" he asked softly in the brief moment of silence that hung in the air between them.

Alois blinked and became suddenly still. He was used to being mostly ignored by Ciel during their afternoons. It wasn't something he took personally. He was, actually, grateful that the other boy even tolerated his presence and non-stop chatter at all. That tone, that...look just now. Had been completely unexpected.

"How did I do what?"

Alois was better at entering "serious mode" than most people expected, and he could be serious when he wanted. Ciel's face betrayed a hint of some inner turmoil, and in this vulnerable state, Alois knew he had to tread carefully or risk scaring it off.

"How did you...accept it? Your...occupation, I mean." Ciel looked away, and Alois was glad he didn't see the shock in his own blue eyes at the question. He knew that something had been bothering Ciel for a few days, more than usual, but this came straight out of the blue.

Alois wasn't excessively bright, but he knew Ciel wasn't asking him how he had gotten into whoring into the first place. He had already covered that. This clearly went back to his pride...

Alois sat up.

"It wasn't a great job. I'm happier not doing it, actually. I complain about the babies in my classes here, but it's not all that bad. Three meals a day, clothes, bathing...you. But if you want to know how I made it through with a sense of humor, it's because of their faces."

Ciel's eyebrows narrowed in confusion at this. He turned his head back to look at the boy sitting cross-legged, a blond-curl on his cheek threatening to attack his upper lip at any moment.

"Their...faces?"

"Oh yeah. A guy, when he comes, makes the stupidest, most ridiculous face he will ever make. It's like, aack!blergh!" Alois crossed his eyes, scrunched up his shoulders, and twisted his mouth as if he was having a seizure of some kind.

It was, admittedly, an extremely funny face.

Ciel turns his head to hide the smile that had arced across his own lips.

"It was a serious question..."

"I know it was. But I can't change the answer, even if it's serious. When you see a grown man turn into a moron, it does allow you to keep a sense of superiority. Honestly. A guy cannot stop his 'come face.' It happens like...like squeezing your eyes shut when you sneeze. It  _will_  happen no matter what. The more they’re into it, the more hilarious it is. It’s actually so funny I had to train myself not to laugh, because the first guy I laughed at split my lip open. That's serious, right?" Alois shruged his shoulders and smiled. "When you know you have to do it, and you hate it, but at least you get a moment of that at the end...well, it doesn't make it  _worth it_ , but it...can at least give you one thing to look forward to. And, of course, I never let them make me come. I'm not going to give them the pleasure of seeing that. All of my stupid 'come faces' are reserved..." he leaned over far enough to get on his hands and knees so he could nuzzle the side of Ciel's face which had been pointedly not directed towards him. "They are alllllll reserved for you Ciel. Let me make you laugh sometime."

Ciel pushed his face away roughly with the heel of his right palm, and his body language alerted Alois to danger.

Dammit. He was an idiot. Somewhere somebody had probably written a nice fancy book on flirting. And in the section under "boys flirting with boys" there was probably a big sentence in fancy letters that read "WHATEVER METHOD YOU EMPLOY, DO NOT USE PROMISE OF YOUR 'COME FACE.'" He was going to have to get good at reading sooner rather than later so he could memorize that book. If it existed. He hoped it existed.

Ciel's mind was on fire. Alois’ seemingly innocuous revelation had sparked a dark understanding: Claude Faustus never...did that...in front of him. Everything, even if he wasn't touching Ciel at all and was simply using the vision of him in tied up, tied down, cut bleeding or otherwise in torment to achieve his climaxes, it was all done behind him, out of his line of sight. As a result, Ciel had never seen it happen. Ever. The moment Alois pointed out as the moment of greatest vulnerability had never been put on display for Ciel. Not ever. It was as if the bastard knew he could use it against him...

Claude Faustus. That sick, twisted, calm, careful bastard. He left nothing, guarded everything. Not one thing escaped his attention to detail. How could Ciel hope to ever leave this place? The fact was that Claude Faustus was an adult. Even if Ciel was more brilliant than the man, he still had so much more life experience to draw from. How could Ciel ever envision a plan to escape when he didn't even know what pieces were being used against him? It was simply one more nail in the coffin to justify not actually taking a step forward. He could only batten down the hatches, close the access portals, and brace for impact. Anything else was just...wishful thinking.

"Ciel?"

"I'm tired..." Ciel's voice was bland. He closed  _The Prince_  and slid off the ledge.

In truth, Ciel did look tired. It was harder to see the dark marks under his eyes because one was covered by a cumbersome eye patch and the other partially hid under a fall of bangs most often. His shoulders, however, seemed a little too stooped for Alois’ comfort as he started for the building without a backward glance.

Alois gathered his things. Whatever was going on in Ciel's mind, he had put up a very strong barrier.   Before bed, after they had washed their faces and Alois had asked him for the one hundredth time what was wrong, Ciel had simply said, "It's not your fault." And that was final. Alois felt badly that such a sentence made him feel so much better when Ciel was clearly still suffering over something. But nothing would pry it free of his pride's death grip on it, whatever it was.

* * *

**That night**

And so, that night, Alois had gone to his bed unable to sleep. He was frustrated...frustrated because he should have been in the library with Ciel learning to play chess, learning to read, snuggled together. And he was frustrated that Ciel had pulled so far away from after something he had said. Even if it wasn't his fault, he must have triggered it.

He was still awake when the nurse came to check up on stupid Lloyd (clumsy, useless kid) and he was awake an hour after that. Since she had made her rounds, Lloyd had fallen asleep; anyone could tell from his deep breathing. Since he was asleep maybe...just maybe he could entice Ciel to push things a little to the dangerous side and sneak off. The blond-haired boy was desperate, even more so than usual, because Ciel's entire vibe had gone to hell. It was as if they had taken two steps forward in the last few days, and then six steps backward. He couldn't live with it that way. He just couldn't.

And that was when he saw the movement out of the corner of his eye. Ciel's bed was several rows down, but he could have picked it out in absolute darkness. Alois’ first instinct was that someone was attacking his Ciel. This was an over-the-top assumption, but Ciel had been quite a mark for bullies in the past. Alois’ feet were like the soft pads of a kitten: absolutely silent and agile. As soon as he neared the bed, however, it was clear the charcoal-haired boy was alone but agitated. He tossed as if fighting against an unknown assailant. It was almost as bad as watching him be physically accosted. Worse, really, because had it been another boy, Alois would have had the power to make the pain stop. He didn't want to grab those thin arms. He didn't want to scare Ciel. He wanted to make him wake up!

Alois sat on his bed and touched his thrashing cheek with infinite tenderness...

And then, as if his fingertips had been dipped in lava, Ciel screamed...

Alois was taken aback by it, at the tone of grief in it because it is heavy, desperate...far too final. Too final!

"Ciel...Ciel!"

Ciel's eye flashes open. Even in the muted light from the courtyard, the blond-haired boy can see the intense suffering, the animal-like fight-or-flight adrenaline behind it. Before he can even give one word of reassurance, he is kicked. Punched. Kicked. Punched and kicked, and actually, it hurt. Ciel is working on some primal energy, and it's impressive. Alois doesn't grab his hands or his feet. He sits there and takes it. He takes it because Ciel _needs_ to fight.

_That's right. Pretend I’m the pain. Wail on me. Let me have it. Don't give up, just...never do that!_

Presently the movement slows then stops. Ciel is getting his bearings, but his outburst and his futile struggle have begun to wake the other boys. Alois looks around as the moans start and a few bleary boys sit up, rubbing their faces.

Ciel is breathing hard. One glance and Alois knows Ciel has just had the Nightmare of the Century. Worse, the fact that he has drawn so much attention to himself is going to be the insult to his injury. Already Ciel's eye is blinking, trying to process his location, take stock of the situation, but not calmly. It's more like a mouse having been dropped into a maze by giant, human hands: full of confusion and fear.

"Alois...?"

Ciel's voice is tremulous. The blond-haired boy rests a reassuring hand on his shoulder and squeezes. He doesn't have to say useless things like, "it's all right" because it isn't. Nor will he say totally obvious things like "you're awake. It was just a nightmare." By now Ciel is figuring that out with his giant brain all on his own. What he does still need is a shield. A warm, nice one. Alois can perform that function exceedingly well.

As Ciel becomes aware of the stares and the grumbles surrounding him, he retreats. Not physically, because he cannot do that with any dignity whatsoever, but with his mind. He stiffens.

"What the fuck is wrong with all of you babies? Never had a nightmare before? Go back to bed!"

The charcoal-haired boy blinks at the absolute...loudness...of Alois’ voice in the dead of night. The other boys are as startled as Ciel. Startled and scared. Ciel hazards a peek from under his blankets and, sure enough, one by one, they start to turn over. A few drop back onto their pillows so fast and hard that their entire flimsy, wire-sprung frames bounce.

It was true that nightmares were by no means an isolated incident at St. Sebastian's. On the contrary, nightmares went with an orphan's life like a bouquet of roses at a graveside. Most often they were just as silent, but not all of the time. With their curiosity so firmly negated by Alois’ command, there is no reason to fuss over it anymore anyway.

Ciel's heartbeat is still racing, his fingers on the covers shiver as he tries to compose an airy, unconcerned apology for having physically abused Alois seconds ago. To his dismay, the covers over his body are shifted and Alois is actively crawling into bed with him.

"What are you...?"

There is only so much space in an orphanage bed, and Ciel realizes that if he scoots any further to accompany his need for personal space, he will soon be on his rear end on the outside of it, which will do absolutely nothing for his stinging pride. Besides, Alois is determined. As silence begins to descend in the dormitory once again, Ciel gives up struggling. Alois burrows into the blankets and wraps an arm around Ciel's shoulders, almost nose to nose.

"This one...this one was really bad, wasn't it?"

Ciel can barely see Alois’ face, but he can smell that sweet candy breath close to his. At his words, the dream begins to blossom in the charcoal-haired boy's memory like poison hemlock. It was...so real. So real that Ciel swears he can still feel Claude's tongue on his body, the pain...he shudders and says nothing.

"It's just me here, Ciel. It's just me. I'm not going to let you get hurt..."

If Ciel had been on his game, he would have brushed away the gentle rubbing of the hand at his back, the tickle of one of Alois' rogue curls at his nose. Had he been prepared, awake, he could have pushed Alois out of his bed...but he is not any of those things. That is what he tells himself, anyway. There is something nostalgic about this moment.

Oh yes. That first night after they met...Alois had brought him bread pudding...had seen everything. But that night, surrounded by Alois, in an almost trancelike state, he had given himself over to be healed.

"You have no regard for a person's personal space..." he whispers with as much pride and aloofness as he can manage, but he is a sham. Right now, with all his heart, he wants to throw himself into these arms completely and drown in this illusion of Alois’ protection, far from the hands of Claude Faustus, nightmare or reality.

"Ciel, you don't have to do this. Not with me." Alois pulls the covers up over their heads. In the pitch darkness they have a little more privacy. He shimmies closer to the smaller boy. The air is steamy and soft and thick with their breaths, with the heat from Ciel's pulse. The charcoal-haired boy is fascinated by the inhalation and exhalation of the strong lungs. There is a pattern of rising temperature each time Alois’ lungs fall, accompanied by a little more space between them. To his dismay, Ciel realizes that he has begun to breathe at the same rate, inhaling as Alois exhales, taking those breaths of life deep, deep inside, calming, very slowly.

The dream...it starts to become a dream, shifting into the void where all dreams go eventually, though still memorable. Horribly memorable.

"Alois...what will you do...if the headmaster comes tomorrow?"

The breath freezes.

"So, that was who you were dreaming about."

Ciel says nothing, but it is clear he has confirmed Alois’ suspicions. He squirms, and Ciel knows he is wrestling with this.

"Fucking...kill him?"

Ciel's eyebrows draw together. He feels the pressure rising, and the worries of the past few days assail him with renewed vigor. When he opens his mouth to retort, Alois is suddenly very...there.

_Stop talking about it!_

Alois’ lips encompass Ciel's in a feathery heartbeat that skips. Oh, he is going for it this time. Going all in. They can't have this conversation now; Ciel's entire body is still shaking from some spectacularly revolting and traumatizing dream. His shoulders are trembling fiercely, even if the little fool was too proud to realize himself. Heap more pain on top of it? More confusion? More drama? No. Hell no.

Ciel is blushing madly. This...is not a kiss, this is consumption, and his brain is spinning. It's rich and wet, and sweet and candy-appled and fresh and bright like sunshine. It makes his insides hot and his brain muddled. The kiss sparks a renewal and continuation of that sensation he had experienced the first night in the library that had been so surprising that he could only pull away and babble about not having Alois’ children...

Ciel's mind tells him to stop this, at once. His pride is having an apoplectic seizure and dying a slow death. His heart, however, is opening like the petals on a daisy...and wants...more.

When Ciel doesn't pull away or stop or close his mouth, Alois nearly has a heart attack. When his tongue finds Ciel's and he  _still_  doesn't pull away...well, that’s it. It's the Kiss of the Millennia. It really is. Because this is Ciel, and yes,  _yes_  he should feel terrible about taking advantage of the boy in his trauma, but...it seemed like a good idea at the time.

And, frankly, it was proving to be a  _great_  idea by the second.

_I love you, Ciel. I love you. Crazily. Madly. Oh my God, I love you...please..._

But the "please" doesn't get any further, and Alois isn't sure what he can ask for, what he can have. He is totally unworthy of Ciel, he knew that from the start. And, it's true, he had been first drawn to Ciel just because he had been...so different, so interesting, compared to everyone else. Of course, once he began to watch the little prince, he had pieced it all together, the terrible, sad story, and then his heart had rushed in, gotten all tangled up and...involved...

Like his mouth was involved. And not just his mouth, but his hand. Neither boy can see the other, but Alois’ palm cups Ciel's cheek. It's so sweet and round, burning with something close to a fever. So...red hot.

Ciel's brain is reeling. If Alois’ purpose had been to shut him up and shut him down...it worked. But this? This...is not a kiss. A kiss is a small thing one does with their lips. A tiny fraction of suction and then, pop, over. What Alois is doing...it's not...sanitary. Even that thought, however, flies away. There is a rhythm to this warm, comfortable sensation as there is a rhythm to heartbeats, to breathing. Ciel is a quick learner. He goes with the motion, imparts a little of it back. His mouth accepts all that sweetness for a few seconds without any reservation.

When he feels Alois shudder, pull him tighter, closer, so that not even an inch separates them, he suddenly has a mental picture of what is going on. Ciel breaks the kiss. Gasping he takes a deep breath of Alois’ air, embarrassed. So embarrassed. The blood in his veins feels like it is going to steam scarlet and explode out of him.

"I'm...I'm too hot..." he hears the tremulous excuse.

"Oh. Oh hell yes, you are." Alois breathily concurs. Ciel feels Alois’ face lean forward and then there are more kisses, recognizable, tiny popping ones, on his forehead, his cheek, over the eyelids of his good eye. "So...so hot. God." Ciel's body feels...alive, but mentally, he is at a complete standstill. He has never felt this way before. Ever. His brain is attempting to calculate something to say or do to recover from this, his pride is drawing charts and graphs of the escape routes, but his heart is full and fat and lying prone over both of them. Besides, his brain and his pride have both taken critical hits from that dream. They are not currently up to the task of doing anything but taking it. Taking Alois’ fervent affections.

The other boy is shifting slightly on the bed. He's absolutely silent about everything, and then he pulls the covers off their heads. Ciel takes a deep breath of the drier, cooler air, but isn't sure this is better. And then Alois’ arm is around him, pulling somehow closer, until the charcoal-haired boy finds his head resting on Alois' chest.

Vaguely, Ciel is pleased that Alois’ heart is racing just as fast as his is. Somehow it makes him feel less pathetic that he should be so undone by something so small as a kiss. In retrospect, the whole thing had only lasted a few seconds, ten at the very most, but it had certainly made an impact.

"Alois..."

"Shh. Yell at me tomorrow. I'll take my punishment, just...sleep now. I'll disappear before anyone else wakes up.”

Alois feels Ciel finally relax.  _In my arms_. And it becomes quiet, and he knows Ciel has eventually fallen back to sleep because his breathing is even, and his tiny weight is heavy on his chest. He really...like a baby bird...fell asleep here, listening to his heart.

Alois thinks he can almost die happy now. Almost. That kiss had been...spectacular. He replays it over and over in his mind, the sweet sensation of Ciel opening up, of...of...Ciel kissing back. For maybe two seconds, only, yes, but...it was a lifetime to the blond-haired boy. And, just like that, it becomes an addictive drug...and Alois knows he is going to need his fix again. Ciel had been completely inexperienced in the kiss department, which, of course, meant that whatever Claude Faustus was doing to Ciel, kissing him like this wasn't one of them. Good. Because those kisses would be poisoned lies.

_I bet...I am really his first..._

With a happy sigh Alois gently nuzzles into Ciel's crown. It's true then. He really, actually, loves Ciel. It doesn't surprise him as a concept, but Alois has never been in love before. Yes, he loved Luka but...that was totally different. He didn't want to roll himself up into a little ball and live inside Luka's soul like he wants to with Ciel. He knows he will have to keep it a secret. He could explain away all of his inappropriate behaviour, chalk it up to affection and caring and his criminal background and his complete madness, but actually saying the words to Ciel...it might destroy it all. Maybe.

Alois takes one more deep breath. He's the happiest, right now, than he can ever remember. He has to hold onto this feeling, in case it never comes again. His eyes close to savor it all, and after a few more minutes, both boys are fast asleep.

_to be continued..._

 


	7. The Lion and the Fox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's raining again and Ciel knows Faustus will come. How can he keep Alois from self-destructing or worse?
> 
> Warning for rape triggers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love hurts.

* * *

"The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves."

― Niccolò Machiavelli,  _The Prince_

* * *

 

There is no escaping this fact:  _He will come for me today._

Ciel's finger is pressed against the pane of glass in the dormitory. It latches invisibly onto a drop of water clinging precariously on the opposite side of the window. He holds it with his mind, wills it to stay in place, to hang on as he has done for the past few days...but ultimately, bombarded by the heavy weight of the reality of this downpour, it shivers and then slides away and is gone. Lost--a part of all of the water cascading to the brick, to the ground, to sink a path to hell.

Ciel's small lungs inhale and then exhale. The anxiety of waiting for  _his_  hands to spring out from behind him and suffocate the small flame of kindled life in his heart had reached a kind of crescendo the night before. His fear created a nightmare the proportions of which were, at least at present, beyond reality, beyond his heart's ability to bear. But he had woken from horror to warmth. To comfort.

To Alois.

Ciel is annoyed that his heart merely catches a glimpse of those memories and is off to the races. Honestly, to be...to be taken advantage of when he was barely awake. Hands on his cheeks, those laughing lips...and then to be kissed so...so hotly. The soft breath in his mouth.

In his mouth.

Ciel swallows and squeezes his heart. He must clamp a lid upon this treacherous organ because it is irrational and at cross-purposes with his ultimate goals. But it is difficult because the memories are sweet. Soft. So unlike his life and everything in it...

Ciel's head falls gently to the window as he closes his eyes. He presses his forehead to the cool glass and concentrates on breathing.

There are things he must consider now, before it is too late. At some point, he has become excessively attached to that insane boy. There was shame in it, yes, because such attachments were unproductive and confusing, and he was neither a wasteful person nor a pervert. However, logic and reason could not compensate for the companionship that boy brought. If Ciel was destined to live in this hell, then he could live in it provided Alois shared it. That was it. That was the end. There was to be no more overthinking the matter, and if it was cruel, so be it. Alois, himself, did not seem to be suffering from the attentions he was granted, and in many ways, his connection to Ciel was beneficial; Ciel would provide the framework of civility by which Alois could continue to live at St. Sebastian's, an institution far preferable than virtually any alternative for a boy of his demeanor and position in life. Additionally, Ciel was teaching him to read, and that would also benefit him in the long run.

The facts remained:

1\. Ciel needed Alois's strange attention and affection to distract him from the shame and misery that superseded everything.

2\. Alois did not bow to authority unless in doing so he received some benefit or it satisfied some random interpretation of his pride.

3\. Alois had the capacity to kill, and he was already in danger of possible expulsion. He had voiced, on several occasions, his desire to murder the headmaster. He had entertained the thoughts of killing boys who even spoke against Ciel.

4.  _He_ was definitely going to come today.

There was no way to forestall falling into those hands, and Alois would not accept this fact. Not easily, if at all. What could be done to keep the golden rays of the other boy's sunlight on his face while simultaneously walking into Claude Faustus's darkness?

Ciel pulls his head away from the glass abruptly as something solid and impish pokes his cheek.

"Good morning."

Alois is smiling. It is a rather restrained greeting, but the boy with the charcoal hair sees the light of mania in those eyes as he waggles his blond eyebrows suggestively.

"How many times must I tell you not to paw at me?"

Ciel turns from the window and smooths his blazer. The trauma of the last night, of the last few days of waiting, has morphed into a kind of perfect determination. Not a hairline crack can be left for exploitation by his enemies today of all days. And Alois, who has become disturbingly adept at finding said cracks, must not know that Ciel will be swallowed up by the spider in his web or there will be no predicting the level of mayhem such knowledge would inspire.

"Oh, well, I just figured I had a little leeway now with that, since, you know, I  _tasted_  you last night."

And just like that, Ciel's face burns. The pitch of Alois's giggle is low, and he can almost feel the edge of that shared intimacy rub gently at the memories. Heated breath, a fast heartbeat.

It requires far more exertion than it should to keep his face expressionless.

"You figured incorrectly," Ciel holds his huff squarely in his chest and spares Alois a glance. "Nor should you believe that it will happen again. It was a lapse in judgment on my part."

Alois is not put off. He doesn't look properly disappointed or incensed. In fact, his expression denotes extreme disbelief. When he opens his mouth he looks ready to say something properly pornographic...but in the same movement he twirls to face the window and his eyes catch something.

The smile falls. His stare is too quiet, and Ciel must turn and try to find the object of distraction...

But there is nothing and no one in the courtyard except the statue of St. Sebastian, weeping in the rain.

"Rust. It's going to start to rust."

Alois's voice is soft, low, hypnotized. He puts both palms against the glass, and Ciel understands. He is looking for his weapon. He is looking for the knife that Ciel forced him to bury to save him from suspicion. To keep him here.  _To keep you where I might find you._  What kind of attachment did he wrench away for the sake of civility? How much of the hell of this world would Ciel confine this beast to roam, caged, in order to have Alois's hands in view?

Ciel takes a deep breath.

He'd bind Alois in this cage indefinitely with him if that was the only way.

"Come. Breakfast and then class." His voice is commanding, but Alois does not hear him until the smaller boy physically places his pale hand over the back of the one seeking a sharp edge in the dirt below. His hand is smaller, too, yes, but it is firm and cannot be ignored.

Alois blinks and follows the fingers to the wrist and up Ciel's arm to his face. The sunny smile returns with a vengeance, all rain clouds gone, and he easily releases the window.

"Hey, I've got a couple of other things you can grab that'll get my attention too. They’re even in your reach."

Ciel makes a sound of disgust and turns to the door. He is followed by a giggling brightly lit shadow.

* * *

**Breakfast**

Alois can't put a finger on it, but Ciel has changed in some way. Yes, he is still quiet at breakfast, eats with small bites, and keeps his head partially lowered so that his eye does not make contact with any of the other boys in the refectory, but there is...a difference.

Is it his shoulders? They look as straight and perfectly postured as usual, but...there is not a trace of fear or concern. The last three days he had been stiff as a board, almost painful to look at. Alois pushes his bottom lip out and tries to decide if this is a good change or a bad change. He sucks his bottom lip in and leans his arm on the table to prop his head up with his hand.

"Elbows."

Ciel says it just after swallowing his porridge. Oh yes, and eating. Ciel is eating. That is definitely a good thing, right? That adorable little bud of an adam's apple is going down and then up. It's hidden, but active, and for a second Alois wants to touch it just to know what it feels like, this precious growing thing...

Oh, the elbows.

Alois puts his other elbow onto the table and cradles his head in both hands.

"I think maybe we should sleep together every night." He says it innocently, like suggesting a time to meet, or a book to read, but Ciel coughs around his small bite and cannot answer him with all of the gusto and delight Alois just  _knows_  is brimming over in that tiny little chest.

"Look at you. You're cheeks are all ripe and rosy and you’re eating and ordering me around. I love it. My kisses definitely have magical powers. I'm better than a fucking doctor, Ciel, and you know it."

"Keep your voice down or shut your mouth entirely."

Oh, he could talk again. And he was looking around to see who had heard. And who had heard? Alois turns his head. Boys are chatting quietly, some of them. Others just morosely sit and eat...

One pair of eyes is looking right at him, though. A pair of angry eyes under a bandage still around his cheek.

He's sitting all alone, poor, poor boy. And, oh my, those eyes are so unhappy and threatening, aren't they? Alois sits up. He tilts his head. And then he grins and scoots closer to Ciel until their rumps are touching and his benchmate has to physically raise a free hand to push at his arm. Ciel hasn't noticed the stare because he keeps his eye on his food. That's fine. That's  _perfect._

Robert Robert Robert. Silly boy. Dumb boy.  _Dead_  boy. Alois touches his own cheek, mirroring the place he punched, and then pouts for his audience. Pouts nice and condescendingly. He even rests his fluffy blond hair all over Ciel's shoulder and enjoys the hand that pushes at him in direct response.

"Honestly. Let me eat in peace."

Alois giggles.  _Oh Robert, don't you hate me? Don't you want to do something now? I wish you would..._

He turns his head and whispers. "Let me kiss you."

Ciel's threat is quiet and menacing. "You do, and there will be no chess lessons. Ever. Consider your actions carefully."

And Alois has to. On the one hand, it would be so easy to steal the kiss, but he has to be careful because Ciel is like iron about certain things, unbreakable and unshakable, and he hadn't wanted to provide those lessons in the first place-it had taken so much  _work_  just to get to this point.

Yes, he wanted to put on a little show for the grumpy angry boy over there, but he had priorities. Behave. Remember, in the library no one would be watching and then...to maybe earn another scalding kiss like the one last night.

_Ciel, I love you._

And then Alois begins to fidget because he is uncomfortable on this hard bench with the fabric of Ciel's shorts burning through his skin. He grabs his bowl of bland food, puts it directly to his lips, and delightfully imagines Ciel's horror as he shovels it into his mouth without a spoon, consuming the entire thing in under 30 seconds. He swallows and pushes it all down into his belly, licking his fingers.

Spoon rules were stupid. If Ciel had a no-kiss-in-public rule, then Alois would have a no-spoon-at-breakfast rule. And possibly a no-fork-at-lunch rule too. He'd see about it. He could make a rule exception in exchange for some Ciel submission to kisses before lunch--he wasn't  _completely_  unreasonable. It would serve Robert right.

That's right. Suffer, you bastard. You get to live,  _for now_ , but you will suffer for Ciel's mercy...

" _Alois_!"

Ciel's strained whisper brings him out of his reverie. He looks up at Ciel's unbelieving, red face. Oh my, how cute. What now?

"Stop... _licking_...the bowl like a beast."

The blond-haired boy blinks. Oh. Had he been doing that? But his tongue was almost his most favorite body part. Especially since last night. He sets the bowl down and imagines licking Ciel's cheek like a beast.

"But I  _am_ a beast."

His face must have given away his thoughts on the matter because the boy with the charcoal hair scoffs at him, rolls an eye, and dabs the corner of his mouth with a napkin.

Ciel is calm. He is good. All traces of the trembling little lord in his arms the night before are gone and he is a perfect soldier. His blue eye is narrow, condescending, not wide and fearful. Alois loves all sides of Ciel.

"Wipe your hands properly," he commands.

Alois finds himself doing it. "Yes, my lord."

A professor rings a brass bell, and in one body all of the boys get up to go to class to part until lunch.

* * *

**Class: Morning**

Ciel does not watch the clock. When his heart begins to pound, he calms it. Everything is fine. Everything is the way it was, but with a difference. The difference is that when the night with  _him_  is over, Ciel will have a path back to the sun. His "French Lesson" will not leave him completely shattered, not anymore. What did he have to fear from the repetition of a cycle? As long as he can control Alois's madness, as long as he can keep him from the edge of the precipice, then Ciel will suffer the cycle indefinitely or until he is old enough to leave this place. As long as he is able to keep the new status quo...

The rain continues to fall outside the classroom window. In his mind's eye, Ciel is out there under the statue of St. Sebastian, mentally securing the sharp dagger. Realistically, he should move it, bury it someplace else. If Alois knows where it is, he could have it again...

Then again, if Alois discovers it missing, he would still have the means to create another that Ciel might not find until it was too late. It was a truce after a fashion, an acceptance of some kind of civility on Alois's part, but Ciel knew he would be unwise to test it too far.

But the headmaster would come for him at the end of classes. Today. Alois could not fail to hear about it. And then...what would he do? How would it be possible to put him in a place of rationality in expectation or acceptance when he had nearly killed a boy for simply bullying him?

Ciel hears his name. He looks up and answers the question perfectly. He is composed. Nothing is wrong. Nothing can hurt him too deeply.

Ciel is not the last one to leave the room for the lunch half hour. He is not the last one, no, but while passing the boy's lavatory a hand grabs his arm. Alois is giggling and the sound of it echoes.

The smaller boy is exasperated. "You must end this constant engagement during class time, Alois."

The blond-haired boy's smile is too cunning. "No." And then he looks up as a boy enters to go about normal lav business. The hapless bystander stops in his tracks and Alois's face goes from sunny to deranged in a split second. "Piss off." The younger boy does not need a second command and Ciel vaguely worries that a professor may approach if the interloper tattles. He had certainly finished his business in his pants before he was even out the door thanks to his insistent companion.

"What is it you need? Be quick."

"A kiss, of course."

Ciel balks. "Absolutely not."

"Why? Look. No one is around. Just one. Just a little one, Ciel, and I promise I won't murder anyone today." Alois thinks his tone and his voice are charming. They are charming, but only to Ciel. Anyone else would believe that the tone and voice indicated that the taller boy is insane. Which he so very clearly is.

"You will  _not_  murder anyone today or ever because I ordered it." Ciel is unmoved.

"Hmmm. I don’t mind your orders...most of the time. But something happened at breakfast and I'm feeling in need of more motivation."

"What happened?"

But Ciel is not sure he wants Alois to continue anymore. Even to the imperious boy who held the leash, Alois's face is dark, contemplating someone's destruction.

"Robert watches you. In  _that_  way."

This is not good. It is not good because that hatred in Alois from his last altercation with Robert is not yet cooled, and there is something so much worse on the horizon. If Alois is already near a breaking point, then when Ciel must walk out of class into the headmaster's attentions, the probability that this mad child will expose himself and be expelled (or worse) is almost assured. Whatever happens, Ciel must  _not_  allow that to happen. Above anything, even his pride, to a degree, Alois must be here when it is all over. If he can compromise on a level Alois understood to vouchsafe that...

Ciel is silent for the space of two heartbeats.

"Very well."

Alois blinks and gazes at him in wonder. "What?"

"I am not above giving proper motivation for my orders, provided you follow them to the letter." He says it in that voice that is calculating, and truthfully, he is merely calculating. If he thinks about the warmth, of the heat, he may not be able to hold this mask together.

"Ciel..."

Alois's hand is on the wall. He leans in. Ciel knows he won't wait to have this permission retracted, and the fact that Alois asked for that permission instead of stealing the kiss must be proof that his orders and threats are working on some level. Right? It is heartening. There is so much sorrow to come...

Alois's lips on his are soft. Ciel closes his eyes. He holds himself up, but when the lips open his and the action is so natural, so gentle, so...

_Ah!_

The flash of heat is a burning ache. It forces his eye open and he sees Alois's face so close, eyes closed in bliss, in peace...and he lets his own eye drift closed again.

Candy pink. Hot. Moving and rich and wet and funneling so deep into his soul, sinking inside it, taking up residence purposefully, permanently. What is this feeling that burns and yet is so welcome--that stabs at him all over his body, inside it, outside it, and is entirely acceptable? So understandable?

And then the sounds of two professors talking outside as they walk by the lav entrance bring Ciel back to reality. Back to the  _now_  of what this looks like. No, of what this  _is._  Both hands find Alois's chest and he pushes him off.

They both breathe hard. Pant. Silence.

"Enough," Ciel says, bringing the back of his hand to his face, burning it with his breath.

"Oh fuck. Oh damn." It's a moan. Alois leans against the wall and buries his head in his arms.

"I trust you are...satisfied for now." It is not a question, it is a command. Ciel's brain and his logic grab his heart and stomp on it to keep it quiet. Subdued. His heart, for its part, is so confused it can do nothing but lie there and accept the beating.

"Oh no. Hell no.  _Hell no_. But...but okay. No murders today, I can...I can do no murders." His voice is muffled by his arms and the wall, a curtain of wavy golden hair.

Ciel steps away and straightens his blazer. "I am going to lunch. Only follow me if you can compose yourself."

"God, how do you...? Shit...Yeah. That will take about...uh. Yeah."

Ciel hears a sniffle. His eye narrows but he says nothing.

Alois waits until the sounds of Ciel's little feet have tapped far and away before he pulls himself from the tiles. He runs the heels of his hands-and then his shirt sleeve-over his eyes, collecting pools of water there. Oh God. He is so. So fucking  _in love_  and  _God_  love hurt so fucking  _badly_ and felt so good. He breathes, he shakes. He needs to come. What was it? Was it the smell of Ciel? Was it the way he just...just let him...and then...he definitely  _definitely_  kissed him back. And it was broad fucking  _daylight_ and no one was horrified or tired or whatever.

Satisfied?  _Satisfied_? No. No, because Ciel was still a separate being that could push him off and walk away from him and be in another room and  _live_  like that because he had that whole barrier that could just...

But sometimes it didn't. And for all the times that it didn't, he would  _need_  Alois. He would. Somehow, he'd make it work. He'd find a way to keep Ciel closer so the wall could just go away and  _he_ could be the wall.

Until then. Yes. Yes, all Ciel orders were check and double check. He could totally go a day without killing.

* * *

**Lunch: 20 minutes later**

"He needs a bandage on the other side of his face." Alois idly muses as he pushes a finger into the bread of his lunch. "It's just...so fucking lopsided, don't you think? I could give him another one. Then I wouldn't mind him staring."

Ciel does not look up, but he has interpreted the unfortunate subject of his benchmate's violent ideations.

"No blood. No more nurse visits," he reminds Alois in a low voice. He had paid for this obedience at a cost he hadn't quite deciphered, and Ciel does not like to be confused, simply obeyed.

"Well, I could manage it without either. I wish he'd just throw a punch at me. I could call it 'self defense.'"

Robert was far below Alois's weightclass in brutality, and Ciel knew it. "Self Defense" for Alois was a death sentence for someone as the sharp-rusting-piece of a makeshift weapon in the courtyard proved.

The courtyard. How Ciel wished it was sunny so that he might read under the shade of the statue. So he could be assured that  _he_  would not come. While the rain wasn't necessarily a deterrent for some boys, it was for Ciel--he had once taken a fever so badly a year ago that apparently his life had become endangered. The fever had been brought on by a desperate boy who tried to find his place of solace even in a cold rain. The result of that episode was the doctor's orders that he be kept indoors during inclement weather and a reprieve of a week from the headmaster's attentions.

Apparently certain things could move even  _him_ to caution.

But it would have been beneath Ciel's pride to attempt such a thing again for the same purposes. Taking ill to forestall the inevitable? Ridiculous. It was a coward's method, and Ciel was no coward.

He reaches over and grabs Alois's wrist. The blond-haired boy has poked his bread 45 times-Ciel counted-and the meat inside was not supposed to be viewable to its consumer for obvious reasons. It has become easier to touch this boy, and touch always receives Alois's full attention-Ciel was learning how to manipulate him.

"Alois, you do remember my order."

He lifts his blue eye to meet their counterparts.

"It's just bread, Ciel. It doesn't have any feelings. This thing, on the other hand," he pulls a piece of misshapen meat and dangles it, "I bet it did once. But it's dead and it's rotting," he tears a piece with his teeth, "and it's so  _delicious_."

Ciel forces his stomach to stay in place. So much for eating his own lunch and gathering his strength.

"My orders," Ciel repeats.

"I know, I know. Misbehave in secret. Don't get caught. Don't kill anyone, blah blah. I'm on board if you keep up all of the... _motivation_."

Ciel clears his throat and tells himself not to remember. It feels...wrong to remember something so unexpectedly lifebringing when the creature that was coming to attempt to snuff it out was even now likely on his way.

Alois chews around his food and then sighs. He leans in close, "but when will I get  _that_  order, huh? When do you make the plan so I can get the 'just fucking kill that bastard for me, Alois' order?"

 _Never. It will never happen_. _He is too powerful. He will destroy you._

"Be patient."

"Pff. If you’ve noticed, patience isn't something that fits so well with  _my_ pride."

"If you feel strongly enough about taking my orders and can manage the simple ones, then perhaps you can carry out the more complicated orders later. Maybe chess will instill a more proper discipline for-"

"You'll do it. Library? Tonight?"

Ciel sits up straight, tilts his own head, and appraises the overly excited creature perching at his side, waiting upon his word. And he must  _must_  keep it that way at all costs or Alois will be gone. He knows he has already made too many concessions to this boy, but at this point, the loss of him would be...catastrophic. Ciel has already accepted that.

The little lord places his silverware on his plate, brushes a few crumbs from his lapel and wipes his mouth reflexively with his cloth napkin. He holds up a hand to forestall the limbs that want to be thrown around him with some kind of manic-flavoured joy.

"Listen to me carefully," Ciel says finally. "I have said it, and nothing will alter it unless you cannot observe these simple orders.  _Nothing will alter it_."

Alois's tilted head, the narrowing of his eyes, proves that he is attempting to see into Ciel's mind, to understand the import in some way other than the simple declaration. It's a labyrinth full of confusing twists and turns, and a labyrinth is nothing but a game. Ciel can hide a mountain in plain sight when he wishes it; he has trained himself relentlessly for it. Alois would come to understand it this afternoon when he did not appear after classes, but by then it would be too late. Everything Ciel had in this world was currently riding on one thing, one fervent prayer:

_He must heed my order at all costs. He must see more benefit in the obeying of it than in the obeying of his madness._

The clock was ticking and time was short. He had to hope that there was something left inside of Alois's own broken mind to accept what he could not change in a moment of violence.

_No cracks. Leave not one..._

But it is too late. Alois has seen a hint of the plan he craves deeply imbedded in Ciel's one good eye, but the plan is one of attrition-if even that-not victory.

"Ciel..." Alois grabs the other boy's sleeve as he rises.

"Class." is the only response he receives. Alois's heart clutches threads of sudden fear and his blood turns cold in his veins. By chance he happens to look up.

Robert is watching him with a smile. A sick smile. A smile that says, " _No more fun times for you, Alois, crazy psycho boy. No more fun times."_

_I am going to kill that kid._

In the rage that bubbles up and liquefies the ice of Alois's fear, Ciel manages to slip out of the refectory and Fate takes its place to settle down and watch.

 _If_ that _thing happens...what will I do?_

The very thought, the notion, of Ciel's thin, pale body exposed, touched,  _hurt_  by anyone...

Alois picks up a fork.

A hand on Ciel's back, too close...words...breath- _the rotting breath of a dead man_ -fingers, body, pain, pain and Ciel's sweet kiss face lost, swallowed up in the tide, floating away.

The metal in his grip is sure. It's solid. It's real. It has these five little points to stab five holes in a neck. In an eye. Oh, an eye. He'd love to shove a fork into an eye. What's inside of an eye? Is it like water? Is it like jam? Is it like milk? Does it hurt? It should hurt.  _Have one, you bastard. Have an eye gouge just for looking, and with a look, for the thoughts, and with the thoughts, the action that lets you think you have a right to this pure, majestic thing that will walk right to you instead of to me._

Not twenty minutes ago he was crying because the touch of his little Ciel was like one hundred years in heaven. Just that. The yes, the kiss, the mouth the...the  _everything_  of him that felt like it was his...

But it wasn't his, was it? Ciel would walk away. Maybe. Maybe Alois was wrong. Maybe, but...he had been acting so...

Alois breathes. His hand hurts. The fork is in the table-driven into the table. His shoulder is jarred, but it's okay. It works. When he releases it, the fork stands up obscenely. Boys are staring at him, murmuring, but he doesn't care.  _Look, no one is dead_ yet _. No one is bleeding. No one is at the nurse. No one, no one, Ciel._

What will he do?

_Damn you, Ciel. What will I do?_

* * *

**Class: Afternoon**

Ciel is calm.

He does not look at the clock. He forms his numbers perfectly. He takes great pride in achieving correct calculations. He is the master of thoughts and feelings. He is in complete control of his reactions to everything, even if he cannot control a fact: it is raining.

_He will come today._

There is a kind of smooth purity in the way the graphite leaves his pencil. The trails are bent and curved with careful precision to form a symbol that has meaning and structure and balance. He could live inside that line and feel immense pride and be happy.

When the door opens, he does not allow himself to be filled with dread. There will be an  _after_. There will be a dark library and a candle and books and Alois. That is the vision to have, no longer the reality of a smoothly-written equation or the headmaster's tall body filling the front of the room.

And it does fill the room. It fills the air with an aura of menace. Of  _joy._

_Do not reveal a crack._

"Ahh, Headmaster Faustus. It's been awhile. Welcome back."

"Thank you, Mr. Dawson. I trust that everything has proceeded smoothly in my absence?"

Ciel does not look up. He is consciously aware of every muscle as he closes his book. As he collects his things. As he puts them away. He is consciously aware of the looks, of the jealousy, of the eyes on him. He has not one flaw in the mask to let these poor, pathetic orphaned boys know how carefully he must control his fear, think through it to the end when it will be  _over._  Until the next time when he will have to do it over again.

It isn't until he stands that he raises his eyes to meet the headmaster's-those disgusting, eerie, inhuman yellow eyes. They are narrow and hooded and smile and  _know_  and Ciel wonders how the others do not feel the creeping  _evil_  of them. He walks forward, but this is not bravery because he has calculated his options and this is the safest, surest course towards his goal.  _He_ has decided it, and having decided it, it can be endured because he finally has some kind of control.

Headmaster Faustus looks down at Ciel. He smiles pleasantly- _horrifically_. "Good afternoon, Ciel. I hope you have been keeping up with your French while I have been away."

Ciel raises his chin. "I think that you will find a few extra days to study has allowed me to surpass your expectations."

"Is that so?"

He looks intrigued. Ciel is unafraid. Or rather, he is terrified, but it is safely behind the mask. It is safe in Alois's hands.

The boy with the charcoal hair and the one blue eye smiles as well. He has a secret, and it is better. He has something. He is not powerless anymore. Claude Faustus will never have his soul. Ciel does not need the memories of his former life to bring him failing comfort. He has thrown them all away for something more real than those broken, burned things. He turns and leads the way from the room. It gives him the opportunity to swallow surreptitiously, to maintain this straight back, this pride. He can remove his mind from physical pain. He has other memories to dull the shame. He will survive until tonight.

 _Alois...follow my orders. I will only beg_ you _._

* * *

**Class End**

Alois rushes to meet Ciel leaving class. His heart is pounding. He thought of leaving the baby class one  _thousand_  times, and rules be damned, but it was reading and if he was wrong then Ciel would be cross and perhaps there would be no pirates or chess tonight. And he  _had_ to be wrong because he would not... _would not_...just go there. Ciel would not just quietly walk away from him and go back to  _him._ Alois  _knew_  what it was doing to him, what it had done to him,  _where this was going to go_. After nightmares and pain and scars and his body...his body...

 _His body and his heart and his soul and everything that is Ciel is mine. It's no one else's. He's the only one I want. He's the only thing I love. I love_ just one thing _! And you can't touch it!_

But Ciel is gone.

Is it possible to love a person until one's heart burst and hate them at the exact same time?

Alois stands at the door and he is breathing hard, and he feels the something in his chest that wants to break just break. It hurts. It hurts worse than losing Luca, somehow, even though that should be wrong. It hurts. It fucking  _hurts_.

Boys are leaving the room giving him a wide berth, watching him anxiously. Does he look crazy right now?

_Ciel, what will you make me do..._

Alois smiles. His heart is broken and he smiles. It is a smile that is dark and sick and inhuman and ready to murder. Past the point, really.

_I can do this game too, you know...better. So much better. When I get you back, I won’t let you forget it._

There is no speaking until they enter the Headmaster's study. Ciel hears the click in the lock. It is that final sound that pulls dread out of his soul like a sweater unraveling...long, never-ending, destructive to something that could once be whole and warm.

"Your compliance is an unwarranted little victory today."

Ciel detects the smugness.

"I suppose it is a victory." Ciel stops and turns around, his heart pounding. "But it is not yours."

"Oh?" Faustus is genuinely interested. He places a few things on his meticulously ordered desk: his keys. A couple pieces of post.

"Indeed. There was a certain statue in the courtyard you promised to remove. Your deadline has come and gone and St. Sebastian continues his vigil. I consider that to be a loss on your side, and a loss for you is a victory for me."

Yes. Ciel hangs tight to this. St. Sebastian has't left him, but Claude Faustus must never know the true source of his renewed strength. He can  _never_  know or he would take great delight in destroying Alois, and in this place, he was still The Prince.

"Is that what you think?" Faustus's voice is smooth, almost entrancing, as he removes his spectacles and places them with his keys. The effect of those yellow eyes unbarred by glass cannot be disregarded. Ciel feels his feet tremble, his chest thump, but he must remain impassive on the outside. He must play this game.

"My blue sky, my  _Ciel_..." His feet begin to propel him through the distance separating them. The charcoal-haired boy stands his ground but it is not easy. "The wait is inconsequential. I'm sure you have heard of the board's decision. I will not insult your intelligence or lie, but you must know their disapprobation is a mere formality."

"Formality? Your high-handed pronouncement was defeated by  _underlings_." He says it because he knows Faustus. He knows his arrogance, his ego, and he knows that to the Headmaster, every creature under God is an underling. Even God himself. And he knows that this will irritate him as sand would in the joints of his exoskeleton, rubbing something tender beneath. This spider.

The headmaster's eyes narrow for a flash of a second. Ciel can rejoice a lifetime in the span of a second. It must suffice.

"It only appears to be a defeat because I am not finished."

Ciel does swallow before he can stop himself. Claude Faustus slowly drops to one knee in front of his powerless victim, his eyes searching for the crack in this mask. His smile is so vile that the boy must work to hold down his breakfast-his lunch.

"Ciel, there are things you will come to learn as an adult. Everything, absolutely  _everything_  involves a formality. A due process. A rudimentary set of rules that human beings have imposed to regulate and order its society. But the strength of the rules is only as strong as a scratch of a quill on a piece of paper." He slowly removes a glove from his left hand as he speaks. "The power in the formality, in the process, is a thing in the mind. In other words, it  _has_ no real power. _It is an illusion._ "

Faustus's hand reaches up. He touches Ciel's cheek and Ciel is unprepared. He is unprepared because he is not used to having to look directly into this creature's face, to hear his words from this vantage, and they burrow into him, pounding at his walls. When the Headmaster touches him, Ciel's instinct is to flee. But he cannot. He  _will not flee_. Faustus has seen his guard and is upping the ante, solidifying his offense. When was he able to go from defense to offense? Did it really happen without Ciel knowing?

"There was enough power in the rules to stop you." Ciel is proud his voice does not tremble. He gazes levelly at his tormentor as if daring him to do his worst.

"Ah. Not stopped because  _I_  have not stopped. I can wait while I move the formalities forward. I am exceedingly good at waiting. The irony, Ciel, is that while the power of a formality is an illusion, it works both ways. I can use the perceived power to my advantage. After all, once you know the rules of humanity, you can subvert anything to your will."

His hated hand slides to Ciel's neck and rests there. The boy knows that his heartbeat is giving him away. His blood is pumping fast. Hot.

"And so, through formality, you may disguise this wolf and walk amongst the lambs."

"I see you are beginning to understand." Faustus's fingers play up to Ciel's ear--they slide under the strap of his black eye patch against his skull.

This is new. This is not allowed. This is not...is not what he had prepared for, at all.

"Do not touch that."

"Did you give your eye to the devil, Ciel? That is what they say..."

Ciel's chest heaves. He hates. He hurts. His hand curls into a fist. There is no point in striking because it will do nothing. There is no point in striking because it will not stop him. There is a fissure, an opening directly into his core. It is a crack in the mask sitting right in the vicinity of his right eye. Left hand, right eye.

Ciel takes a step back, but Faustus's body is large, even kneeling, and Ciel's legs are small, and one step, while allowable in this situation to maintain his dignity, is not enough to put true space between them.

_Do not touch it. Do not look at it!_

"...It is all a formality, Ciel. Even this. This game, too, is a formality. The book. Your resistance...mere formalities."

And then the eye patch is gone. The sound of silk slipping through fingers. Ciel is exposed in a way that is unconscionable. Unbelievable. In every sense, he is being violated worse than any other moment- _every_  other moment-spent in this demon's hands.

Ciel's hand moves on its own. It moves from a base animal fear and pain and horror. It slaps Claude across the face so roundly that the sound of it reverberates off of the carefully polished wood floor. It creates an instantaneous ring in the glass hurricane of the desk lamp. The boy's fingers sting and grow hot and his hand is poised in midair as if shocked at its own actions.

Everything becomes blurry. His heart is being crushed. Ciel is terrified because he thinks he may pass out.

It was a blow strong enough to move that immovable, implacable face. But that knowledge brings no joy, because his armor has been punctured by Faustus's spear. The ruin of him is now so plain to his greatest enemy that Ciel might as well have simply reached in and pulled out his own soul for a silver platter.

When their eyes meet, the smile on Claude Faustus's face traps him utterly and Ciel is frozen and does not know, any longer, what he can do. The hand that brushes his hair from his forehead, that intimately thumbs over the  _ruin_  of his lost eye, starts a shudder in his body that he cannot stop.

"So beautiful, this part of you. I forced myself to wait to see it. To wait for the proper moment...it was worth it..." It is a murmur, a sick, foul uttering. Claude Faustus's arms are sliding around him, around his back, and they are long and iron. Ciel is panicking inside but nothing will respond and he is trapped, so trapped! The spider's lips are on his neck and he feels teeth. They scrape at his flesh. He is shaking.

"Stop..." Can he summon nothing but a whisper? Where is his imperious command? Where is the confidence of five moments ago?

"Ah, Ciel. Yes...yes tonight I think I shall devour you completely...finally."

Ciel can't stop it. It has spiraled out of his control. He pushes at the shoulders, his pride be damned. He hears himself say "no!" but the mask has shattered and he is just a boy and he is terrified and he does not want this hurt and humiliation. He is broken and the spider's teeth are at his neck, waiting for his lifeblood to pump so that this demon can gain everything.  _Everything._  There is no way he can come out of this room and be Ciel. Faustus is so right. His game...it is  _his_  game only, and now that the formality is over...

That spark inside. He has to protect it. Somehow, gods, God.  _Sebastian!_   _Alois!_

A loud cry, the sound of pounding feet. The harsh clang of a large hand-held bell. Mayhem. Mayhem in the hallways.

Faustus stops. Ciel is breathing. They both listen. The interruption does not go away. In fact, it increases in volume, building to a crescendo of human fear, but Faustus does not release Ciel until someone pounds on the door. A hand is somehow banging on the headmaster's door and Ciel gasps back into this world.

"What is it?" The headmaster speaks towards the wood. His voice is controlled, but barely.

"Fire, headmaster! A fire on the third floor! Fire!"

A fire.

A fire, when he was sinking into hell...

Ciel wants to laugh. He wants to laugh at the hilarity of it. Laugh until he is completely senseless...but he is not free. He is not free.

Faustus's face swivels slowly to look at him, perhaps gauging his victim's culpability in this. But Ciel knows what he sees. He does not see guilt; he sees the measure of what he has undone, and that is worse. So much worse.

Claude Faustus is still thirsty for blood, but it cannot stand.  _Formality_  demands that he see to this situation personally, and, of course, if he does not emerge they will come for him. He releases Ciel's body and Ciel does not collapse upon the ground. No. He falls to his knees to grab his eyepatch so that, above all, he has this. It was so easily taken from him, but that did not mean he could simply allow it to lie on the floor. Even if it was the protection only a black feather afforded, it was a concealing feather. It was  _his_  feather. He clutches it so tightly, just for a second. He must feel it, hold it, and then he is tying it back and his destruction, what was  _done_  to him, can be hidden. He can piece this mask together. He  _will_  do it. He will do it a thousand times. The world cannot see it.

"Can you walk?" Faustus asks.

Ciel breathes. "I'll bloody well walk out of here." His back is straight, but inside he is destroyed. Destroyed. And he knows now how easy it is to destroy him and what will he do? What can he do?

"Such language..." The headmaster smiles. "Allow me to escort you to safety from this terrible threat of fire." He opens the door to bedlam, and he knows Ciel hears every ironically drenched syllable-- There is no safety here or anywhere.

Feet are moving, boys are pushing, shoving. People are yelling, and as soon as Ciel exits the headmaster's study he can smell the smoke.

It thrills him. It fully causes his heart to expand for a moment at the idea that this place could burn, that the evil could, perhaps, be purified...and then he is unceremoniously pushed into a wall. His cheek stings and he presses himself against this hard, flat plane as proof against the tidal wave of rushing bodies. But Ciel is not afraid of this fate. Fire took his mother, it took his father, and it is too good a death for this tainted, cursed,  _filthy_  boy. His life will end toppling to the bottom of a mound of bodies to wait for the demons to pull him to hell. That's how he feels now. He can never be redeemed, not now that  _he_ has seen Ciel’s true face.

A body suddenly hovers close, a hand takes his arm and without preamble, pulls him into the flow, into the stream. Like something just feeling the cold water for the first time, Ciel gasps and resists it, but then the hand on his arm becomes a hand in his hand and squeezes it. Ciel looks at the hand, up the arm of the boy clearing a path through the eddies of boys. It's a bright sunrise.

His face...Ciel can see it. It is not laughing. It is not smiling. It is set and cold and the boy with the charcoal hair shivers despite the heat of that palm throttling his own. And then there is rain and there is actual cold on his body as the doors open into the courtyard. Boys take the opportunity to cavort a bit, it's unruly and unexplained and  _exciting_  to them. There is smoke from a tiny window on the third floor. It's a tiny window because the aperture exists chiefly to allow sun and air into a room that otherwise saw very little human occupancy.

The third floor storeroom.

Once it had been Ciel's sanctum in the rain. Once he used to hide with his book and read before an unkempt boy had burst into it, laughing, looking for a hiding spot. In a moment of fate, Ciel had helped cover him with paint-splattered drop cloths.

Smoke boils darkly. Alois's hand is tight. His eyes are not even on the spectacle above, even though they should be there. How could Alois not fail to enjoy...

And then the smaller boy understands. It's clear, like the continuous clang of the bell, like the now wet smell of burned cloth rising in the air. His eye widens.

_He did this...Alois..._

And Alois is not looking at the window because he is gazing across the heads of boys and ignoring the call of teachers and employees as they try to keep order. Ciel's eye follows the direction and then he realizes that Alois is staring murder at one thing and one thing only.

And Claude Faustus is watching him back.

_(yes, seriously, this WILL be continued...)_


	8. The Downward Spiral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alois is angry, and then frightened, because the Ciel he knew is slipping through his fingers...

* * *

"A man who is used to acting in one way never changes; he must come to ruin when the times, in changing, no longer are in harmony with his ways."

― Niccolò Machiavelli,  _The Prince_

* * *

 

**Ch 8: The Downward Spiral**

_Claude Faustus you fucking cock-sucking bastard._

Ciel tries to pull away from his hand, but no.  _Hell no. Hell fucking no. Stay here. If there's even a_ chance _that you'll walk away and disappear into someplace I can't find again..._

_Do you see me, Faustus, you piece of shit? You motherfucking dead asshole._

Oh, he sees him. The headmaster stands completely still, completely silent, while around him boys are squealing like girls and professors are yelling. The fucker had managed to grab his warm coat and his special big top hat before going out into the rain--obviously not worried about burning in an inferno. He has these yellow eyes the color of piss and Alois wants to piss on them. They bore into Alois and Alois bores down on them right back. The boy's eyes are screaming out a message in total silence across the space between them:  _I'll piss on your dead face and take a shit in that nice big hat._   _I'll destroy this whole place and you and maybe the whole damn world and myself before I let you touch him again._

Alois thinks he got the message because the inhuman bastard  _smiles_.

And then the fire is put out and Ciel is quiet and not trying to pull away, and that is good. Eventually the boys are brought out of the rain, every one of them soaked. Later, they are all questioned by professors. Not the headmaster, Alois noted. No. Oh please, why couldn't he have been in a locked room with him? With a knife.

_Fuck...my knife..._

Whatever. He still had hands that could close around a throat and feet that could kick to break a pair of balls. He knew the angle and he knew the force necessary. He was a fucking ball-breaking  _artist._

The teachers were rough in their questioning, some of them, but they were trying to get to the bottom of it (because  _fire!_ ) and Alois was completely oblivious when questioned--he had no idea how the fire had started. He had just run from class, same with all of the other boys milling around, walking from here to there, anywhere in the building, really. He was the very picture of complete and total innocence. He never at any point hurt so fucking bad he couldn't breathe, never for a moment did he hate the thing he loved the most and wanted to hurt him, wanted to destroy something of his. He never ever thought for even two seconds that starting a fire was the best way to flush out fucking perverts from their evil nests and free his little bird so he could get him back. Nope. He was just a poor orphaned little boy who loved learning how to read, thank you, and eating porridge for breakfast and mystery meat for lunch. He never pulled that box of matches from his pocket (where he kept a few other handy things) and set that fire to paint-splattered drop cloths that, seriously, went up  _so fast_  like Guy Fucking Fawkes Day. Brilliantly fast. He never ever thought,  _Ciel, I hate you for making me hurt so fucking badly. For going to him. Why didn't you just..._

And when the smoke was billowing and he was running all over this fucking place looking, ready to kill, hurting in his chest so much that the bottoms of his feet were numb, he did not slip that box of matches into Edward "Freckleface's" pocket. He was looking for Robert, wanted to bump into  _that_ little prick and frame  _him,_ but he wasn't there and Alois didn't have time to piss around when Ciel was somewhere being someone  _else's_  and that was  _unacceptable_.

So yes, he was completely and totally innocent. He was naturally nervous because "it's fire, Mr. Teacher, and we're afraid of fire on principle, yeah?" And it was raining outside and he had been cold, but he hadn't done any damn thing in the world. And he hadn't just basically told the headmaster to fuck off with his eyes.

And when they found a matchbook with a match missing from "Freckleface's" pocket, the professors pretty much spent the rest of the evening with him. There was nothing left of the day and it was crazy with wet boys all hyped up from the most exciting thing that had ever happened to them because fires were a big deal. Fire had once burned down most of London, and somehow even kids hadn't forgotten that. Fire could burn down London again for all Alois cared, for all it had ever done for him.

Still, for the two seconds Alois spent watching it, the fire was amazing and hot and wonderful. Fire destroyed Ciel's storeroom. Good riddance. He'd never be sorry about it, though. Never. If he had found that stupid book in time, he'd have burned that too. Burned it all and everything having to do with Faustus. Why be scared of fire? Boys should appreciate a fire when adults need a wakeup call about where they are headed.

That is to say, to fucking  _hell._

Aside from the professors and his persuasive acting, Alois said  _nothing_ to anyone else. He said  _nothing_ to Ciel who was saying  _nothing_ back, to him or otherwise. He let Alois dry him off with towels, and the taller boy let him hide behind him when he changed in the dormitory because  _no one_  got to see Ciel. Period. But even after things calmed down, Ciel sat and stared blankly and said not one word.

Before Ciel got into bed he made eye contact with Alois once, and there was nothing there--he was completely empty.

It hurt.

* * *

 

"You fucking  _knew_  and you didn't tell me. You hid it."

Alois slaps a hand onto the library table because he is angry. Ciel is sitting in a chair wrapped in two blankets. He doesn't say anything. He watches, though. He watches and his shoulders are low and his eye is still empty. It scares the blond-haired boy, but he is entitled to slamming hands on things. He's allowed to beat on something right now and be mad.

The candle in here is dim. Everything is cast in shadow. Ciel is very still.

"Fucking  _say_  something, Ciel."

And he doesn't think Ciel will say anything because Ciel hasn't said a word to anyone or anything at all tonight. But the charcoal-haired little lord is full of surprises, and that's why Alois loves him, loves him, loves him so damn much.

"What shall I say? I deceived you. I manipulated you to keep you from an action that would cause you to be detained or expelled or worse."

His voice is controlled. In almost every way it's the same imperious voice from the morning, the voice that said things like "don't paw at me" and "elbows" and "wipe your mouth properly" except for one thing. Alois doesn't know what that one thing is, exactly, but he senses it is missing and it's scary. He thought Ciel looked empty because he was just putting on a poker face, but when he talks, there is something wrong.

But Alois is angry, dammit, and he has a  _right_.

"Was it worth it? Did it work?"

"You tell me? No blood was spilled and you are still here with me, breaking and entering the library. I did accompany you."

It's true. When Alois slipped out of bed and rubbed Ciel's back, he had woken up, looked at him, and climbed out of bed so fucking obediently. He'd wander after Alois to sneak into a library as easily as just walking off with the headmaster who wanted to fucking  _ruin_ him. Ciel is so damn obedient-hilarious because he gives everyone else orders _._ Alois laughs at the joke of it. It's high and funny. It shakes the golden curl at his cheek and it tickles him and pokes his eye. That's why it tears up. Yeah.

"Ciel, you are a fucking bastard." He walks around the table and plants his hands on the top of it. He leans down and his nose is close to Ciel's head, but the other boy does not move. He watches and Alois can smell that flowerful fragrance that was all around him earlier that day when he gave permission to be kissed. He can feel heat radiating outward from the smaller boy's body. He could and  _should_  steal a kiss. He wants to steal and make it a victory. But he doesn't.

"I said, you're a fucking bastard."

"I know."

"Don't just give up so easily. I called you a fucking  _bastard_  and I mean it.  _Fight_  me. Tell me  _why_."

"You can't keep me from hating him."

Continued silence.

"Ciel, you can't just...just fucking  _go_  with him anymore. Whatever this is, your pride or whatever, you have to put a stop to it. I'm an idiot because I let you make me an idiot, but I won't anymore, I swear it. It's not happening. And if you don't come up with a plan, I'm going to do what I want. You can't just order me to watch him use you up and destroy you, Ciel;  _that won't happen_. I'll blow up the whole damn school first."

Ciel almost cuts him off. Almost. He's fast. "Alois, cease these pointless dramatics. There are things beyond my control."

Beyond his control? Since when is anything beyond Ciel's control ever? That was a new one, and not a good one. Ciel is  _always_  in control. And yet still, he's being insulted to his fucking  _face_. How is he so calm? What's wrong with him? It's like someone impersonating Ciel in this seat; they have the look and his voice, but that spark that makes him Ciel is...utterly absent.

Fuck.  _Had to be Faustus._ Had _to be._

"Ciel, _it_  will never be in control if you don't  _take_  control."

_Did I stop him in time? I set that fire so damn fast_

Alois’ face changes because rage is giving way to a creeping fear. "What did he do?"

Ciel's eye narrows briefly and then it falls open, wide and remembering, and something sounds like it's shattering in the back of Alois' head. "Never ask me that again." Ciel's voice never raises a decibel, but a hollow note begins to ring in Alois’ ear. There was that something different again. Wrong.

Ciel stares at the candle. He's floating away on some very bad memory of something Alois couldn't stop in time. Never mind that it was  _all Ciel's fault_ , but if he didn't snap out of this…

Alois leans over onto the table until he can just shimmy onto the top of it. Ciel can't see the candle, just shadows on the other boy's face, because he takes up a lot of the space and that's good. That's what he wants. He wants to block out Ciel's narrow view with that one good eye and fill it up with himself. Something is really wrong and he needs to get him back. He wants Ciel to be annoyed by the lack of decorum, tell him roundly to get off the table and stop acting like a fool, but he doesn't do it.

Alois bites his bottom lip. He's scrambling over a roof for a tiny pair of hands connected to a body hanging over a pit. What kind of words could ever bring Ciel, the  _real_  Ciel back? He doesn't know. He doesn't  _know!_  There was only one thing he did know…

It was such a gamble.

"Ciel, did you ever want to hold onto something so badly that you pushed everything and everyone away that looked at it? Touched it? Even thought of it?"

One eye is covered by a black eyepatch. The other refocuses from some unseen middle distance (maybe somewhere around Alois’ bare feet which are dangling up in the air, swinging). It comes to him, that focus. He can see into Ciel. The big blue globe catches a little bit of the light.

"And once you found you had it, did you ever feel like you would do anything,  _anything_ , to hold onto it? Suffer all kinds of shit to continue to just believe that thing was yours? Like, it was your one thing and without it you couldn't live at all?"

Ciel is listening but says nothing.

"That's what you are for me, whether you want it or not. You're that thing to me. What that fucking headmaster does is stealing. He's stealing that one precious thing from me, and I can't let him. Do you understand? If he's not stopped he'll fucking make off with the whole vault and leave nothing but an empty hole..."

Suddenly the boy sitting straight up in the chair smiles. He smiles, but it's not a good smile--it's full of a kind of hate and something else.

"Then Claude Faustus has already robbed us both."

The blond-haired boy's eyebrows crease.

"What?"

"I had something important to me, once--something I would have done anything and everything to protect. But he has already taken the 'vault.' The hole is what is left. You are looking  _through_  me now, Alois."

And then the other boy gets it.

His pride. That's what it is. That is the thing that is missing. In the empty stare, in the smile just now...that vital piece...

Ciel swallows, and Alois can sense that what is keeping Ciel up is some echo of memory of what he was like  _with_  his pride. It's an acting job. In so many ways it's as good of an acting job as Alois’ interrogation earlier--say one thing, think another, keep up the play and fool all the world. Ciel without his pride? What new kind of torture did the headmaster devise this time that maimed and killed the most integral thing to this boy?

_Oh shit. What the fuck do I do?_

It's a blow, but the words that come next out of Ciel's mouth will haunt Alois forever.

"I made a mistake, and you were right. If you are still so keen on having this mess of a creature, then I leave whatever is left of me to you."

It's a tangible thing in Alois’ gut. It hits him harder than actually being punched. And his heart, that thing that he was so carefully picking up pieces to reassemble, just explodes in his hands.

"What the fuck?" He breathes it. He wasn't in time. Whatever it was, it happened fast. Whatever it was, it happened too fast to be stopped. But Ciel is still talking softly, with  _resignation_ , and it is killing them both.

"Everything I have held onto is dust. It is less than dust. I cannot even find my way to its remains. My beliefs, my hopes, my desires…they all hinged on a truth that was a lie from the start."

"Stop." Alois cannot hear these words from Ciel's mouth. They are doing things.

Ciel continues in a low but incredibly level tone. "I am, in fact, no better than a whore. I have no reason to hold myself higher than anyone or anything here. My body has been used and any nobility in me churned to gravel. My father would spit upon me if he were alive and my mother would never look at me again. I've disgraced my family name, I've dishonoured myself, and now this is what I am: I am a plaything with nothing left."

In Alois’ stupefied silence, Ciel's eye scrunches. A small hand goes to his mouth and he coughs lightly. Twice. It's as if the admission stole the air he breathed. His shoulders are trembling.

This is a thing that  _can't happen._

"Ciel, I don't believe you."

The boy smiles ( _horribly_ ) and makes a meager sound like a dying laugh.

"Why should I fight it anymore? What would be the purpose? He will know now the sham I am. He has seen my fear. He saw through it. He has  _seen_   _me_."

There is some special significance in the last sentence, but Alois is clueless. Ciel is deflated, his body has just exhaled all his breath and his shoulders are sinking, but he somehow manages to get out of the chair. He slides off, the blanket drops from his shoulders, and he walks away into the stacks, into that place where Alois pushes the comforters together to be their reading nest.

The rules have all changed. Ciel is crumbling and Alois doesn't know how to stop it. It's bad. It's so bad! He pulls himself without dignity from the table and follows after him the way he has been following after Ciel for weeks except before it was because he liked to watch that straight little back, those shoulders that carried and carried and were not afraid. Now he follows because he wants to cushion the blow if he finally falls from the weight of it all.

He has to grab the candle because, unlike Ciel who knows his way through a library by smell, Alois needs a frame of reference. When he finally stops because Ciel stops, he is confused.

The other boy is lying down in the comforters, not even snuggled inside them as he should because, fuck, it's getting colder and colder at night and these nightshirts are thin. And Ciel doesn't ever lay or sit with his body just...exposed, even under a nightshirt like now. Never.

"Do you wanna read?" Alois is hopeful, but he knows this pose. He's made this pose a hundred times before and it sends a creeping feeling of dread down his spine.

"That's not what you want." And he is so  _sure_  of it. That eye doesn't look away from him, but it's not angry or accusing or haughty or  _any_  of the damn things it should be when saying those words to him. Alois is not going to play dumb to this, but he doesn't like it. It's scaring him, this Ciel.

"I want you to tell me you want to read..." He says honestly.

Alois sets the candle down, too far from the nest to read, but he doesn't know what will happen and he doesn't want to start a fire in this special place of Ciel's. He doesn't want to burn anything else down, but it feels as though Ciel has just placed himself on top of a funeral pyre and is asking for a match.

He crawls forward, but Ciel doesn't stop him with his hand. He doesn't push him away. He doesn't roll his eye or give him a glare that tells him he is encroaching on his personal space. He isn't doing any of the things Alois actually wants him to do. This Ciel is terrifying, but he's so fragile and small and thin and laying here in the cold and Alois can't stop himself for half covering him with his own heat just to share his warmth. He has to be careful or he'll crush this, snuff out this spark that isn't even trying to find life.

Alois tries to hold him tenderly, but Ciel is tense. "Is this too much? Should I get up?"

Say  _yes! Insult me. Push me away!_

It's one good eye, and it can't have the ability to show the literal hollows of a soul, but right now it does.

"Do what you want."

Alois swallows.

"You clearly don't know what I want...you don't."

Ciel's response is cold, but not hateful. "Don't I? Am I not that thing you want at all costs? The thing you want to keep? That you would murder to have? Did you not just confess your jealousy and your anger at the one who has had exclusive rights to me because of his ability to manipulate a lie and prepare an illusion of my own agency through...through  _formality_?"

_Ciel...God. What the fuck..._

"I told you, you may have what is left. I am giving it to you. What use is this body to me anymore? I hate it. I have hated it for years but there was a time when I thought it might serve a purpose."

Ciel's voice is not...it's not even sad. It's not crying or mournful or even...

"It is not pleasing to look at, scarred and used, but you know that already and you still want it. I cannot, at this point, say anything about one's taste in property."

"Shut up...this..."

Alois hugs Ciel hard--with his whole  _being_  he has to hug him. He has to stop him from making these words that are just fucking  _death,_ but Ciel is stiff and hot as if bracing for more humiliation. The heat is leaking from Ciel's body or Alois’ heart. He can't tell which.

While Alois is trying to hold on with everything he has, Ciel's words try to bury them both. "My body still has a final duty, or I might simply throw it away myself. Your presence has been a welcome distraction for me, and I used you. I would have continued to use you for that comfort until I could escape here, but it's too late now anyway. Consider this a payment of that debt. Take it and be done."

Alois’ tears sting. There is nothing but self-loathing that this is what Ciel thought he wanted all along. This is what he thought he wanted? So cute, so naive, and so hurt and so experienced in pain. Giving up. This poor little bird thing that can't fly...

How close had Alois been to this point before he came to St. Sebastian's School for Boys and saw Ciel sitting under that statue reading that book? How close had he come to just laying down, putting up no fight, when those giant prison bastards and their big hands were trying to push him towards their foul, stinking bodies to get them off? How close?

Too close. Way too damn close.

And then there was this boy who didn't let the world see him suffer, who promised to escape and be strong. He was picked on and bullied and  _creatively_  tortured within an inch of sanity and he was still like the prince of them all. And that little lord let Alois tag along, ordered him around, started to teach him how to read and gave him some kind of purpose again...

...And Ciel thought he just wanted to...

 _Fuck_!

"Ciel, I  _love_  you."

The body beneath him seizes. It shudders as the words begin to sink in. Alois looks at his face because it's the most important thing that Ciel understand that it's really, for real, the fucking truth.

Ciel squeezes his one good eye closed and then opens it. And now he looks  _truly_  lost.

"Then you are a fool."

"I know I am. I know. Fuck, don't I know." Alois lets himself kiss Ciel's cheek, his eyebrow, his hair. Fuck, his forehead is so warm. It's hot even. He brushes Ciel's bangs up and there is not one word of complaint as Alois presses their foreheads together. Gently.

"You have a fever."

"It hardly matters."

But Ciel isn't bracing his body anymore for, what? What would that have been? Horrifying, that's what. He's calmer now, softer. Was it the words? Did those three words really have that kind of magic? Did Alois win in some way?

"Of course it matters. You matter. Your body, your heart, your soul, the whole Ciel package. And I love you, stupid. I love you and that's what I want. Will you give it to me? If I want that much. Can I go ahead and take it?"

Ciel sighs, but he rests his head against Alois’ shoulder. He's completely exhausted. "Do whatever you want."

How did Alois not see how all of this was further destroying him? Or maybe it was helping him?  _God, what!_

"Maybe what I want is to put you back together better than before. What about that?"

"Do not strain yourself to impossible tasks."

Alois laughs in his tears because that sounds so much like the Ciel he knew this morning. It's just a little bit, the words, but,  _fuck_ , he never thought he'd be missing it so much already.

"Well, that's that, then. 'Alois, you are a fucking piece of shit if you can't get this love of your whole life to remember that he has a big brain and can make plans, huge plans,  _great_  plans that involve getting rid of Claude fucking Faustus."

Ciel sighs but he is giving himself over to cuddling by inches and degrees, not expecting hurt, and Alois cries harder when he thinks  _that's_  a fucking  _triumph_.

Still, the voice is defeated. "What use is it losing your own pride in an endeavor to recover the non-existent vestiges of mine?"

Alois kisses the hair tucked away in his arms. "Oh, you always underestimate me, Ciel. You should just fucking stop that, by the way. Why don't you just admit you have no idea what I am capable of, okay?" Alois’ arms enjoy this--they like holding Ciel when he isn't pushing away. Is he an ass for liking the closeness when Ciel's identity just shattered in front of his face? Yeah, he is. But it's not news that he's an ass, so whatever. Hugging and holding are reminding him that Ciel hasn't disappeared into that empty hole that opened at the center of his soul. Something has been left, and that's good. He can work with that.

Ciel says, "I do not, in fact, know of what you are capable, hence my vaguely effective efforts to keep you in check."

He is admitting things and telling truths. He's been doing that from the second they got here. Alois should have been more afraid of that because maybe he would have seen this coming.

"Keeping me in check…because you need me?"

Silence for a second. Ciel is really tiny, somehow, right now.

"Yes."

"And you'd have just let me do shit to you like some heartless fuck? You'd throw me at that level?"

"I thought...it would allow me to..."

Alois pulls back and turns Ciel's face to his.

"Allow you to do what? What the hell follows that?"

"...to keep you for awhile longer."

It's very quiet--no more than a whisper really. Can Alois’ heart take any more of these perfectly aimed stabs? No. He doesn't think so. God, this brat. This pretty thing.  _My Ciel..._

"Fuck. You can keep me just by being alive. No bullshit. Someday you are going to tell me you love me, Ciel Phantomhive. And when you do, it's going to suck for you, because by that point you'll have all of your pride back where it should be, and 'nothing ever came of boy kissing' and you'd never let me ruin the grand Empire for my naughtiness but you'd  _want_  to."

Alois sits up and pulls Ciel with him.

"Do you feel sick?"

"No."

"You feel sick to me."

Ciel gives Alois a withering look. There is something of the old Ciel in that. "I'm not sick."

"Good, because what I want right now is for you to suck it up and teach me how to play chess. You  _promised_."

Ciel sighs. "After all of that..."

"Yes, that's what I fucking want. Deal with it." He gets up and grabs the candle, and then he pulls Ciel carefully to his feet.

The chess table is still beautiful in the candlelight and has two high chairs. Alois fusses about the blankets and Ciel is still not resisting or arguing and that is both good and bad. He practically cocoons the other boy and somehow manages to leave openings for his arms. Alois is a golden ball of mania. He grabs the wooden box and opens it. Gleaming marble pieces stare at him and he smiles back. Yeah, this is going to work. Ciel is going to remember that he's a haughty little bitch and there is going to be some pride building here or Alois is going to have to break something again.

The taller boy has no clue how to set up a chessboard, so he begins just pulling out pieces by twos and threes and setting them on the table in whatever random way they slip through his fingers. Before he even has ten of the pieces on the table (and he's working fast) he sees the first real sign of life from Ciel.

He's frowning at the chaos on the board. A small hand snakes out from the blanket and deftly begins to take pieces, placing them into the perfect center of certain squares. His eye is calculating and judging, thinking of something other than giving up; he's pondering the goddamn  _game_  and that's going to make Alois unreasonably happy in two seconds. He manages to get all the pieces onto the board with just one instance of mad giggling.

"What is so funny?"

"You think I'm obnoxious."

"That is a rather long word for you. Do you actually know what it means?"

Oh God. Yes.  _Come back to me, Ciel!_

"That depends. Do you think I'm obnoxious?"

"Thoroughly." He sets some weird identical little pieces all in a line in front of him. The black side.

"Well, then, I know what it fucking means. See?"

Alois jumps into his chair and surveys his side of the board. Man, yes. Ciel is black and he is white. This is how it's going to be forever. A hundred years from now when they are old and shriveled and completely in love they are going to play this game, and then the winner gets to be on top. Old People Boy Sex. It will be amazing.

"You're insane." Ciel says.

Alois looks up and realizes he's been chuckling, wriggling in his seat in anticipation and imagining Ciel's pruny and precious lips when they're 113. He has to admit that, yeah, probably normal people didn't have these thoughts. Much.

"I love you."

Ciel's eye narrows at Alois’ knowing face and Alois thinks, s _ee? There is something there after all._

"Never say that in public."

"Is that an order?" Alois prompts because he's an ass and he wants an order. And maybe he'll follow it, but if Ciel can order him around and narrow an eye at him and call him insane then this was going to work. It was  _totally_  going to work.

"Yes. It's an order."

"Say it back. Say you love me back. You know you want to."

"No...what are you doing?"

Alois picks up a piece from his side of the board shaped like a horse--he likes this one because it is the most detailed and it's a  _fucking horse head-_ -and places it somewhere randomly on a square between their two little armies of marble.

"I don't know. Going first?"

Ciel sighs in a huff-A fucking  _huff_  already! Yay!-and says, "It is true that  _when you know enough to actually start a game_  you will go first. White always leads. However, you cannot simply put pieces down. Each piece has certain allowable moves."

"Oh yeah? What's this piece then? I like it."

"A knight."

"What? Fucking  _really?_ "

"Yes, really."

"Oh shit, Ciel. Look, it's a fucking  _white knight_! I'm the goddamn white knight and I'm going to come over there and rescue that black king. Watch out."

Ciel sighs. "First of all, the object of this game is not to  _rescue_  the king. The object is to  _trap_  the king, otherwise called putting it into  _check_."

"Oh, trap? Well...that works. I'm going to  _check_  you, Ciel. Check you so hard you'll forfeit." Alois doesn't know if the waggling of the eyebrows and the suggestion are too soon, but he doesn't care. This is who he is. It doesn't matter that five minutes ago Ciel was going to let him violate him with completely empty eyes. Alois wouldn't have done that in a million years. That wasn't him.  _This_  is. He wants Ciel to understand that and not ever get that very vital difference  _so wrong_  again. It fucking hurt like hell the first time.

When Ciel rolls his eye, Alois wants to have a party.

" _Pay attention_. In all actuality, placing your opponent's king in  _check_  is crucial to winning the game. However, making crude metaphorical analogies is going to slow your lessons considerably."

"Too fucking bad. My crude metaphorical analogies are the only edge I have right now. Show me how the white knight makes his move so I can start the fucking  _checking_."

Ciel explains how the knight's move is always in an L shape of three squares up and two over, or two squares up and three over, and that it is the only chess piece that can actually leap over other pieces in its way to its destined square like an actual horse--if horses moved in L shapes on chess boards. This game is weird, but Ciel is actively  _teaching_  and it's bloody brilliant. One piece down. Two, really, because he has two knights.

Ciel coughs just before he demonstrates the bishop's move, but Alois doesn't even really hear it and he has to have something flippant and crude to say about every single piece from the rook (obviously an erection) to the pawns. By the time Ciel arrives at the queen, he's coughing way too much. Choking.

Ciel braces himself against the chess board and anchors there as he tries to still the fit that comes over him. Outside of this room, away from this game that has distracted him for a half an hour, there is a world that is waiting to crush him under its foot--there is a headmaster with yellow eyes who has found his way in past all barriers and will now take slow pleasure in ripping him apart one inch at a time. Out there he will face complete annihilation.

The boy with the charcoal hair is hot and he is sick, but he will not add cowardice onto everything else. His lungs, however, are cold and the air here in the library is dusty and stagnant. On top of that, his body, which had held up through the adrenaline of Alois’ desperate confessions, is wearing down.

From the moment Alois picked the library lock until the love admission, Ciel had been set only one terrible thought:  _"Ruin me completely. It would be better if it were you..."_

But then Alois had kissed him and held him and revealed foolish things that Ciel did not, could not, reciprocate. How could he have said those words back after using this boy? How could he have said them after misjudging his intentions so thoroughly? Faustus had corrupted him into believing that he had only one use left, but the truth was different. One thing in this world had to remain pure, and only Alois had the right to cling to him and make him believe in a word like "love" again. The one who wasn't worthy was him, Ciel Phantomhive, and the pride that he held so dearly became the reflection of his ultimate foolishness.

But love wasn't enough.

When Claude Faustus  _saw_  him, when he had touched that place, the illusion that Ciel was playing on an even field disappeared. It was only a matter of time before he finished the job, and his victim had no real power to stop it.

And what would Alois do next time?

Ciel did not know what to do. Chess was something he understood, and, apparently it was the new distraction by his companion's pleas, but how to avoid eventual destruction? He had nothing. The headmaster sat at the top and owned it all. An invisible clock began ticking the seconds to his doomsday, and when it stopped Alois would be gone and Ciel would be just a husk with no soul and no heart. Devoured.

It was foolish to love a lost cause, a lost child, like himself. It was foolish to love because love left nothing but pain in its wake.

"Hey, Ciel. Okay...I think maybe we're done."

Alois slides out of his seat and Ciel feels hands around his shoulders, on his chest, and he does not care about the touches. After all, if Alois had wanted to violate him, he had had ample opportunity to do so, and Ciel is not sure if he still does not wish, on some disturbing level, that he would do it and end it now.

But Alois is a strangely gentle creature when he wants to be, and now his touch is forever synonymous with safety. The fingers on his forehead are cool. They are welcome.

"You're sick. I told you."

"I am not."

"Why fucking lie? I can feel you. You're hot."

"I am not. It is cold in here, if you have not noticed." He does shiver, despite how incongruous this is with how good the chilly hand had felt a few seconds earlier.

Ciel coughs and drags in a breath. It is dry and dusty and his chest is constricting. It did not require a genius to make the connection between his worsening condition and the rain, the cold air from hours earlier, standing outside as the storeroom burned. It had hit him this fast before too when he was little, and once when he was older...

"If you cough like this when we go back to the room, everybody is going to wake up."

"I have had this before. There are ways to manage it."

"Oh, you have a plan?"

"Yes."

"That's fucking beautiful, and I mean it. Let's do the plan. Can I help?"

Ciel smiles a little at the eagerness. To be worried and fretted over--this is what it means to be loved. He had forgotten. He had entirely forgotten.

"First and foremost, the game must be returned in absolutely the same way it was found."

Alois follows his instructions and carefully puts all of the pieces back into the box which is safely stowed under the table. He helps the small blanket-and-boy package back to the dormitory.

Ciel gets into bed and manages to muffle his coughs sufficiently. Once upon a time his mother would heat water and drench a tea towel. She held it up to his mouth, close to it, and told him to breathe. The air was hot and steamy and soothing. Ciel no longer has a tea towel or a mother or hot water, but he has a willing stand in.

Before Alois can pull up the covers Ciel touches his wrist. Everything becomes still and silent.

"The plan." He whispers.

It's very hard to see anything of Alois in this darkness except a halo of light from the lamp in the courtyard. He doesn't know what expression is there, but the other boy climbs carefully into the bed with him and wraps his arms around him so that they are able to both fit. Once, when Ciel was terrified (was it only a day ago? One night?) he had calmed by breathing this candy air into his lungs. Alois pulls the covers up over them and settles Ciel next to him.

The boy with the charcoal hair and the one good eye is hot and cold. He is tired and beaten, but he is still breathing. He lets Alois fidget in the heat his low fever creates between them, allows him to feather a finger across his cheek. It costs him nothing, anymore, because his pride is a shredded heap with barely any form left. If it comforts Alois to love him for these last few days, then he may have whatever he wants. Ciel had promised it earlier, and that has not changed.

"I love you, Ciel. Everyone's asleep so it doesn't count as public." A whisper.

"Shut up and breathe, Alois."

"Yes, my lord..." A sweet giggle.

It is all right to give in to this comfort, to seize this moment, because there will be so few of them left. He could push Alois away for Alois’ sake, knowing the end will be harder the closer they become, but Ciel is selfish and will continue to be selfish. The years living in darkness had been cold, and he wants this curly sunrise now until the last. The mask has been pulled away completely and destroyed, and even though he is a boy without strength there is, perhaps, a kind of pride clinging to him both protective and destructive.

_If it is going to end, then I will go to meet it._

Ciel's thoughts are dark and flawed, and though they have been for some time, the sounds of the cracking and splintering can now reach his ears. One day he will fall through the hole Faustus tore open inside of him and vanish. His comfort is that Alois is a survivor--he will know how to escape, maybe start over. He won't be shattered and end so easily...but Ciel has learned one thing tonight that increases his guilt and piles the sin upon him though he knows no way to lift a finger to stop it:

It will be hard for Alois to lose him, and as punishment for that cruelty Ciel must be forever silent.

_I can never tell you I love you, because someday soon I will disappear..._

_(to be continued...)_


	9. A Wager and a War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alois and Ciel make a wager that has possible far-reaching consequences, but Ciel is sick. When Robert accosts him in the hall again, Ciel learns about death...
> 
> Time is running out for someone...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading and commenting. Everything up through the next chapter has been previously posted elsewhere, but this story has been left unfinished for years. If you enjoy the story, your encouragement will be great motivation for me as I try to find the time to get this epic to its proper conclusion.

* * *

"There is no avoiding war, it can only be postponed to the advantage of your enemy."

― Niccolò Machiavelli

* * *

 

**Ch 9: A Wager and a War**

**Four Nights Later**

"Checkmate."

Alois growls, clutches his hair, and considers pulling it all out. He slams both hands onto the chess board. He grabs that smarmy fucking black bishop that just closed the cage on his beautiful white king and squeeeezes it until it gives up its imaginary guts. Then he pictures himself throwing the piece to the ground and watching it shatter into millions of tiny black marble shards.

"Do it and die." Ciel's voice is reading his mind. Again. He's getting too good at it.

"You beat me in  _six moves_!"

"Theoretically I could have beaten you at four, but I was being sporting."

"Sporting? You beat me in  _six_ , Ciel. That's... _not_  sporting. I only got to move my pawns!" He shakes the bad bad black bishop. Kills it over and over in his head.

"Yes, and you used the double move rule for all of them. I captured three of them with the  _en passat_  rule straight off. You left an opening even a four-year-old could exploit. Put the piece down."

Alois huffs a breath from his bottom lip, blowing his blonde hair up for a split second. He holds the bishop in an overhand dagger grip and brings his fist toward to the chess board. At the last moment he halts his hand and gives it three very small, very  _intense_  spanks onto the board because bad bad bad bishop go die.

"Are you through?"

Alois sulks.

"You lost in six moves. Why?"

The blond-haired boy makes a face.

"Well...I was trying to 'control the center' of the board. Wasn't that what I was supposed to do?"

Ciel puts his hand to his mouth and coughs with irritation. "Simply because you moved your pawns towards the center of the board does not mean you were gaining any control of it. What is the object of the game, Alois? Is it to control the center or to check the opposing king?"

Alois purses his lips, but not at the question and not at losing. At the cough. Ciel's cough, his low fever, his refusal to stay in bed, his refusal to skip classes and rest, his refusal to eat more than a couple of mouthfuls of food, his refusal do anything but come to the library at night. He was just a stubborn, stubborn beautiful little black lord over there in his threadbare blanket raiment, sitting in judgment over chess time.

But he was sick and maybe getting sicker...and a sick boy he loves reminds Alois of...

"Alois?"

"Huh? I know, I know. The king is the goal." Alois pushes his brother's huge, glassy eyes out of his head. He sticks out his tongue and grabs the pieces to reform them for another game. "I'm gonna win next time though. Just watch."

"You say that every game. Do you really enjoy being wrong over and over?"

"I fucking love it. Next question?"

Alois grins when Ciel males a "tch" sound. But Ciel isn't mad, because Ciel has a certain look in his eye when he's angry, and he has a certain look in his eye when he's content, and he has a certain look in his eye when he's concentrating, when he's pleased, when he's sad. It's his eye, not his face. His expression is a permanent scowl; he built his defenses to be protected by that mask, but Alois has cracked the emotion code completely. Now, if only he could slide through an opening like Ciel's mouth and listen in on what he was thinking...

But he didn't love being wrong. Alois does  _not_  like losing over and over again. By his own standards, he's doing well. In four nights he learned the names and moves of all of the pieces, how to properly set up a game, and has memorized the rules (basically, although sometimes he forgets). In four nights he has played six whole games with his methodical and surprisingly patient (but so so SO superior) teacher. He doesn't like to lose, no, but Alois loves the attention, the whole sado/masochism of it. He wants to win, but he's addicted to Ciel's teaching style which is to crush him with some "defeat that contains a learning principle" and make Alois just want to tear all of his hair out, even his eyebrows, by the handfuls. Yeah, he hates it, but he's addicted to it now and is greedy greedy greedy for it. Why? Because he can't not love the pleasure of seeing Ciel so quietly brilliant. Just...so brilliant. So  _infuriatingly_ brilliant and in control.

And when he wins and Alois tantrums, Ciel's eye smiles.

How the fuck could that not be loved? Because when he was pleased defeating his pathetic opponent it meant that he wasn't thinking of other very bad things.

Bad things like the fucking headmaster. And he is always on Alois's mind (covered with blood and pleading for his life) so he doesn't understand how Ciel is just...not doing anything about it. Except that the last time, whatever had happened, it was bad.

And  _bad_  was only going to lead to more  _bad_  so how how _how_ was Ciel not even  _trying_  to patch that pride?

Where is Claude Faustus? What is he fucking  _doing_? The headmaster has been conspicuously absent since the fire. Alois knows that time is running out, but what he  _really_  needs is for Ciel to make The Plan...

"From this point forward, I am going to cease giving you hints or instruction."

Alois blinks and refocuses on Ciel's eye. It is thoughtful.

"Oh yeah? You're that scared I'll win?"

"Please. Be serious for a moment." Ciel is sitting in his blanket cocoon with rosy fever cheeks and a bland, bored expression as if the very thought of Alois beating him at chess was such a joke that it was painful to give it any more consideration than a groan.

 _Burrrrrnnnnn seetheee_.

"Okay. Very fucking seriously, why the ceasing of things?"

"Because I want you to concentrate on the objective, not my hints. You know the moves, you know how the board works. What you lack is experience."

"By experience you mean 'losing to you a gazillion more times.'" Alois tilts his blond head.

"Losing often gains one more experience than winning, so, yes. Losing as long as you pay attention to  _why_  you lost. And I admit I am surprised at how well you lose."

Alois's eyes narrow. "I hate losing and you suck. I have some pride..."

"That isn't what I mean."

Alois blinks. There is a beat of silence and then Alois slaps his palms onto the table and leans over it. "Bloody hell...your compliments are like a backhand to the face, do you know that?"

"You are not discouraged by your losses. You do not give up."

Alois feels some of his grumblies settle a bit as he realizes that the feeling behind Ciel's chilly blue eye is actually very warm. Meltingly warm. But, what the fuck, it takes six horrifying white king losses in chess for him to start seeing this  _now_? For such a smart boy sometimes Ciel is so slow to realize simple things.

"Hell no. I don't give up, not on anything that's important."

"Clearly, your idea of important and my idea of important are two very different things."

Ciel huddles unconsciously in his blanket but he's sweating a little. His forehead is shiny with candlelight. How is Ciel going through the motions and letting Alois sleep in his bed and breathe for him and hold him, patiently sitting through Alois's terrible attempts at reading with his head on Alois's shoulder sometimes and not know how fucking important he is? How does he let Alois whisper in his ear that he loves him and not just get that he is so goddamn precious and worth everything? Ciel forces himself to be vertical when he's clearly sick, suffers chess games with an opponent who can't play worth a shit, and yet won't make the fucking  _plan_  already to protect this?  _Goddammit_.

"I love you, Ciel. You act so arrogant and high and mighty because that’s your fucking bad personality, but the truth is you don't care about yourself at all anymore. That's what happened."

Alois frankly expects Ciel to get pissed off at that,  _wants_  him to get pissed off at that for fuck's sake, but Ciel says nothing. He stares at the board but something in his expression shifts slightly. His eye goes far away, looking inward, and Alois can see the emotion there. Sadness. Why the fuck is he  _sad_? No matter how much of Ciel he figures out, there seems to always be that one inch that makes no sense, that hides and watches and feels but never ever ever explains itself. It's tight and furious and it's that last inch that Alois wants more than anything else because in it lies the secret.

_So, fine, hold onto it, Ciel, but I'm going to make you give it to me someday...someday soon!_

Alois grits his teeth and takes his first move. Instead of a pawn, he jumps over the line of identical little pieces with his knight and looks up.

Immediately Ciel refocuses on the game. Good.

"Didn't expect that, did you?"

"No, but that is not necessarily a bad start."

"Shhhhh!" Alois puts his finger to his lips with sarcastic exaggeration. "No hints, remember?"

Ciel frowns, but it isn't a  _sad_  frown, and that is the most important thing.

"What is your plan?"

_The plan right now is actually to make you stop looking fucking sad, so I guess I win. Game over for me. Now you'll just beat on my pieces and I'll learn something and want to break some more shit._

"Plan? To move my knight and check the king...eventually."

Ciel is not impressed. "This is why you lose, Alois. You must think ahead, see a combination of moves that can propel you to your goal and imagine the moves of the other player. If you merely push pieces around on the board looking for openings, you will fail."

"I told you, that kind of planning is not my thing."

"Then make it your  _thing._  The first game we played you tried to capture as many pieces of mine as possible, but that wasn't the object." Ciel's tone is explanatory.

"Yeah, in the end you beat me with only four pieces. And I thought I was kicking your ass. You let me think I was winning on purpose."

Ciel's lips curl up slightly, just a little, and there's that hit for his addiction again, that  _love/hateyouCielforbeingsofuckingGOODatthis_ feeling. It's infuriating to be smiled at for having done the dumbest thing in chess the first game, but Ciel freely admitted afterwards that he had done the same thing when he started. _Hate love love hate goddamn_. Like a drug.

"If you concentrate on the objective and weigh every move with your progress towards it, then these losses can at least become educational. That is, of course, as long as your true objective is to actually defeat me."

"Dammit, I  _am_  going to beat you!"

"Perhaps, but only if you become seriously motivated. I admit I do not understand why you are so intent on learning this game if you have so little desire to be proficient at it."

"Because it makes me feel fancy and lordish  _obviously_. Now you’re just _trying_ to piss me off."

"Playing against an opponent who is easy to defeat is boring, Alois."

_You arrogant little bastard. Oh my God I love you hate you stop talking!_

"Hey. Did you just say that I'm boring?"

The candle sputters with Alois's growing indignation. Ciel watches something change in the other boy's demeanor, finally. While his opponent's emotions made him unpredictable, they were also the source of his conviction. Perhaps a true anger would fuel something more than a passing desire to win. It might distract his companion from thoughts of recklessly engaging Faustus, from his perpetual worry over Ciel's fever. If he can fill Alois up with a new obsession, then perhaps this blond time bomb will be safe to explode only here where Ciel can soak up the heat.

The charcoal-haired boy coughs again into his blanket and feels hot. Very hot. Dizzy. He unwraps a part of a blanket, but the draft is a blast of frozen air that forces him back into his makeshift shelter. Truthfully, he should be in bed, but time is running out and he does not wish to spend it like an invalid.

"It takes no more effort to defeat you than to dress. I can put my clothes on in the morning, but there is nothing of interest in the task. I enjoy challenges, Alois. How do you propose to make our games interesting?"

There is a silence of about ten seconds as Ciel watches Alois begin to reach a boiling point.

"You want an interesting game, Ciel?" Alois's voice is too calm now, the harbinger of a disastrous storm. Perhaps Ciel has pushed too far? It was possible. He was not feeling well and his reasoning might be flawed. Knowing how their story must end, if Alois winds up hating him would Ciel feel better or worse?

"If I give myself proper motivation, you'll have more fun?"

Ciel's eye narrows. Alois's smile appears perfectly sane but Ciel has come to learn that this simply means that the other boy is plotting. Of course, the things that motivated Alois were sometimes incredibly trivial and difficult to predict.

"If the motivation is sufficient enough that you bend all of your faculties to the game, then, yes. It will be more fun."

"Fine, then let's put a little wager on it."

Ciel sits up straight as a small surge of adrenaline clears his muted, feverish senses. A game with consequences? Intriguing.

"What is the wager?"

"If I win against you at chess. If I beat you, then you have to make the plan."

Ciel blinks. "The plan..."

Alois has the bit in his mouth now--blue fire burns in his two eyes, causes his hands to tremble slightly as they unconsciously (or consciously, perhaps) grip the board on either side.

"The plan to defeat Claude Faustus and give me the chance to kill that son of a bitch. The plan where we live happily ever after playing chess when we're old men.  _That_  plan. I don't even care anymore why you're avoiding making it, because if I win," he leans over the board, his voice dropping in volume but increasing in intensity, "If I fucking beat you at this game, then you have to do it. On your fucking honor as a gentleman."

Ciel feels his heart stop. A door he closed with finality in his mind is being threatened. The thing he cannot discuss is suddenly sitting on the table between them.

_Tell him "never." Tell him to leave that door alone...you cannot open it again and look inside. What if everything you guarded is gone? What if the headmaster truly took it all..._

"Why do you insist on this?"

Frustration in Alois is tempest--it trembles his body and expands inside him until he cannot be still. He must clench his fists and unclench them when he speaks. He has to grit his teeth and then make exasperated exhalations. It forces tears through his eyes and they are glossy in the reflection from the candle. Ciel expects words to be shouted because the emotion is too raw.

But Alois's voice is soft.

"Because you're the only one who can do it. Because Faustus hurts you. Because I love you and you love me, you just won't fucking  _say_  it."

Ciel can no longer meet those eyes. "What if the reason is simply because I do not love you?"

"But I know that's not it."

"Oh? And how do you know?"

"Because I don't need it spelled out in a book, Ciel. I don't need to do a fucking math problem or whatever the fuck magic you use to calculate things. I just feel it. I feel  _everything_ , and now you've made me feel everything and I can't do anything but keep you safe. To keep you  _mine_. And if that explanation isn't good enough then too fucking bad. You calculated yourself into a standstill, Ciel. Someone has to save you if you won't save yourself. If the only way to save you is force you to do it, then I will. You want an interesting game? You better agree, Ciel, or you're a coward."

Ahh, Alois. Ciel truthfully has been underestimating him far too much all this time. This boy is not stupid. He is too clever in a way that is unpredictable. Ciel's lips part because his heart is beating hard and he is hot. He is extremely hot. What is the most important thing to him? Once upon a time it had been his pride, but now it is gone and this boy has filled up all of the empty spaces and confuses him. What is he doing with this insane boy, allowing him to know Ciel better than he knows himself?

Ciel gasps as Alois's nose is suddenly an inch from his.

"You want a reckoning, Ciel? You want a game that's not  _boring_? Then man up and agree to my wager."

He has been stalling in satisfying Alois's request. He needs this blond-haired catastrophe because, against Faustus, Ciel has lost his confidence. If Ciel tries to overthrow the headmaster and fails, the consequences would be too high. But this agreement is a wager, not a surety. Alois had given him an out.

All Ciel has to do is never let Alois win...

"Very well, Alois. I agree to the terms." He narrows his eye at Alois and smiles. "But you will never defeat me. Not at chess."

Alois's reflected smile is just as full of promise.

"Say it then, Ciel. Say it."

Ciel takes a deep breath because he will not commit like a mouse backed into a corner. "If I, Ciel Phantomhive, lose a fair game of chess to Jim Macken, Alois Trancy, then I shall devise a plan to destroy Claude Faustus."

"Now shake on it, Ciel. And you've made a sworn promise." Alois lifts his right hand from the table.

"I do not go back on a wager as a gentleman," Ciel says, wiggling a little to get his own hand from the blankets. "And I declare that you shall never beat me in a fair game."

Alois grasps his hand and then pulls himself forward. He presses his forehead against Ciel's.

"You're going to lose to me, Ciel. You are going to lose. But not tonight because you pumped all of your stupid fever into making a bet with me that you can't win, and I feel sorry for you for that."

" _Never_  pity me, Alois." Ciel bristles and pulls away.

The blond-haired boy tilts his head and flashes a half-grin. "Holy shit, look. It's Ciel. Ciel is still in there. I'm addicted to that guy. Give us a kiss, your lordship..." In the space of a breath Alois is off his chair and wrapping arms around Ciel's bundle and putting his lips on his hot cheek. Ciel makes a face and covers the lips with his hand. He feels the laughter reverberate through his fingers and a phrase, muffled, but clear enough.

" _I'm going to win, Ciel."_

* * *

 

**The next morning**

Ciel is very sick. He knows it. His chest is tight and when he exhales he imagines a steam cloud appearing as it would if he were outside in the lengthening autumn air. Nothing about classes gives him pleasure, but if he stays in his bed then he is simply weak, and that is something the boy cannot accept. He has to put it all from his mind-Faustus, pain, illness, words that he cannot face-so that he can raise his head. So that it all does not crush whatever is left of Ciel Phantomhive and cast it to the wind.

The professor's voice drones. Instead of impending doom, Ciel daydreams about Alois's lips on his hot forehead, of his indignation, of his hands and arms and his breath. When he looks at the clock it is to measure the distance between the  _now_ , without Alois, and the  _then_ when he will suddenly appear in a whirlwind of gold sun and blue sky and drag him back to life.

He believes it is only pure will and stubbornness and his "bad personality" that is keeping him together. Ciel is called on and he has an answer. It is an excellent answer. He is an excellent student. He is superior to everyone else in this room, but they are going to leave this place with their pride intact and he is not.

At the hand-rung bell, the feverish boy keeps to the wall as he makes his way to another room with his books. They are heavy in his leaden arms. Boys brush against him but they hurry on. Ciel is so tired.

The grip on his wrist brings him awake immediately. At first he believes it is Alois playing hooky from his own class, perhaps seeking an opportunity to drag him into the lavatory, and Ciel's heartbeat immediately begins to pound in anticipation of it. But this is not Alois's grip. This hand is not hot and insistent. It is not immediately followed by candy breath. For some reason, Ciel looks down at the hand first and follows it up the arm. It belongs to a barrel chest of a boy-to a face with an ugly greenish yellow bruise.

Ciel is not surprised. His muted reaction might be a result of the fever and the fact that his entire body feels as if it is swimming through the air in slow motion when he walks. When he blinks because he is so exhausted, he thinks that this great big wall-child will just disappear like a dream.

In seconds they are alone.

"Do not touch me," Ciel begins because he wants this altercation to be over with before they are found. The last time the bully had the nerve to corner him, Alois had nearly murdered him, and Ciel does not have the strength today to conjure plans and bribe witnesses and alibis for an unpredictable blond-haired boy who loves him more than sanity.

To Ciel's vague bewilderment, Robert immediately releases him. Now that Ciel is taking note, his entire comportment is different from the angering, lumbering, possessive creature that had trapped him against a wall the last time Ciel found himself alone in a hallway with him. Robert's entire purpose that day seemed focused on hurting Ciel. There is still something lingering and dangerous about him, but he feels no fear; there is literally nothing Robert can do that will hurt him as much as what he has been steeling himself to face for days.

"If you have something to say, I suggest you say it quickly." Ciel sighs. Standing is taxing.

"You still don't pay attention to anything around here, do you?" Robert once threw this very same accusation at Ciel just before he revealed Alois's true madness, and apparently he has learned from the fading bruise on his temple that was very nearly a sharpened blade in his throat: Robert takes up a position near the wall. He is not looming over Ciel. He is not exposing his back to silent-as-cat assassins with murder on their minds.

"Explain yourself."

"You think it's all so carefully hidden because you bribe a few boys with dessert? You think I don't know who clocked me out? Who put me inna bed for days?"

Ciel stands up straight but his voice is unconcerned. "If you know, and you are here, then you are either unnecessarily brave or a great fool."

"He set fire to the third floor store room. He framed Freckleface-Edward Easter. Eddy was paddled to within an inch of his life and put in a room for three days without meals. Did you know that?"

The boy with the charcoal hair yawns. He is not bored, but he is exhausted, and it is convenient that the latter comes across as the former.

"Am I supposed to be concerned? Certainly a boy can survive a beating, isolation, and a few days of fast." Ciel has endured worse. Freckleface was an acceptable loss considering the alternative, and the charcoal-haired boy did not lose sleep over it. He did not lose sleep over it because, often, Alois slept with him, and that was worth the beating of twenty innocent boys.

"You think it's just that? You think being taken away is the worst that happens? Boys die in here, 'Your Majesty,'" Robert's face becomes a dark thing all of a sudden. Not dark enough to raise a flag, not yet, but Ciel should have known that Alois wasn't the only resident of St. Sebastian's to have mental instability. "And they disappear. It's said they ran away, but no one runs away because we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere and lions and tigers and wolves prowl the woods. And boys die. You don't know because you haven't been here as long as me and  _you don't know what goes on_ because you don't care about our pissant little lives. There's a cemetary out there in the woods, past the south building. I saw it once when I was little, and I know it's full of the rotting bones of boys from here."

Death means nothing to Ciel because the boy with the charcoal hair does not feel an attachment to his life. He has considered what death would be like--a cold, empty nothingness and oblivion if he was calculating. If there was a heaven, he certainly was not bound for it now. Perhaps, once, when he was ten-years-old and innocent he could have reunited with his parents there. If he had died that night in the fire. If the piece of wood had loved his head an inch more...if its burning, cutting kiss had claimed his soul instead of just his eye...

"When I was seven, they said Cowlick fell down the stairs. He was a month away from being fourteen. I was there with the other boys when they put him in the ground, but that was the last time they let us go to the cemetery. When I was nine it was a kid named Franklin. He just disappeared. Ran away, they said, but we treated him like he was dead. Just before you came, there was a boy who set fire to things and told dirty jokes when professors were around. He spent days in isolation. I heard they were going to transfer him out of here, but that never happened."

Robert pauses and watches the hallway. He listens as if he is afraid his words will be overheard. Robert's words are dragging something evil along with it to the surface. In Ciel's fevered brain, the lights have dimmed. The level surface of the wood beneath his feet tilts just enough. Robert's hands are on his arms and Ciel is blinking and trying to gain his footing.

"Do not...touch me..." He manages and finds the wall.

"You're sick."

"What...what happened to this boy? The one who...told dirty jokes?" Ciel stands up straight, but it takes effort.

"Found him in the snow in the courtyard one morning. Said he got out and died from the cold."

_Boys die here._

"You don't believe me. You can ask. You don't know what goes on here, Ciel. I know."

Robert is close. Ciel can smell him before he feels his presence.

"Blondy set the fire in the store room."

Ciel swallows reflexively. He is not entirely certain he was able to hide it in time.

"I saw you leave  _that_ room. I saw. I know why."

Robert is too close now. Ciel wants to walk away with his back straight, but this boy knows everything and somehow he is not stupid in every way. Ciel can't hold all of his books and push Robert far enough from him. He does not want to backpedal and yield ground. He is too warm and he feels faint. Still, he manages to keep his scowl affixed. He practices "unconcerned" as if his life depends on it. He says, "What do you intend to do?"

"Nothing. I'm warning you, boys die here."

Ciel smiles. He laughs. It's an ugly laugh. "If this is a threat, it is a poor one."

"You think crazy  _boys_ are the only psychopaths here?"

Ciel's heart seizes at this new thought and Robert grabs his arms. "You think it's  _boys_  who kill boys here? I tried to warn you. I was mad before. I was pissed off you took to the  _crazy_  one. I'm still pissed off but I'm just...I just...I didn't know then what I know now. I thought you wanted it...the  _lessons_...but I know now..."

Ciel's breathing becomes erratic. "Let me go." He only has one eye, and it is blurry and faulty. He feels a hand on his head and it is not Alois's hand which makes it unpleasant and unkind.

"I'd have done it too, set a fire. If I had known. I had it all wrong. I was mad about it before, but I didn't  _know_. When he's gone _,_ Ciel, I'll do it too. I'll take care of you."

When who is gone? Alois? No. Alois cannot go. Ciel has been carefully working to preserve his presence. That will not happen. There is a sun and it must rise and it must frame Alois's robin-egg blue eyes and his smile. It must contain his laugh and his scent and his hands. It must be full of the sweetness of his kisses and the tang on his foul mouth. It must be stretched with his cartwheels and his slouching socks and all of it. There is no replacement for Alois. There is no other sun. Nothing else is as warm as the sun.

Warm. So hot. There are hands on his face and a mouth and this mouth smells like morning breath and no breakfast. Not Candy. Not _him_.

Ciel finds strength then. Forget his pride; there are worse things. He is not to be pawed at, to be claimed, to be touched, to be pitied. He is not to be  _pitied_. His knee is small, but that makes it hurt more. Ciel knows it instinctively because Robert doubles over with a choked cry. The action brings his face down to the charcoal lord's smaller stature. Ciel manages to control his books with one hand so that he can grab Robert's massive ear with the other. He leans towards that ear.

"Listen to me carefully, because I do not make idle threats. I will not want your presence now or ever. You disgust me, and if you ever lay hands upon my person again or open your mouth too widely to others, you will find that cemetery in the woods one last time." Ciel speaks softly for the groaning boy who must strain to hear his last words. "I'm far more dangerous than Alois Trancy or any other psychopath here."

And for the first time in his life, Ciel believes it is true. He does not want to be owned. He will never belong to pathetic, desperate creatures who grovel at his feet.

There is sudden ignition of a flame in his cracked soul.

Or perhaps he is delirious with fever, and the image of Alois in a casket drives him to say mad things because that boy is  _his._

Robert is incapacitated, bracing himself against the wall. He manages to say the name of his lord, Ciel's name, but he cannot or will not make a motion to stop him. It is a miracle that they have not been found. Ciel gathers himself, the adrenaline still sharpening his heat-dulled senses, and walks like a prince to his next room.

* * *

Alois claims him seconds after classes conclude. Ciel allows Alois to pour words into his ears about his day and the professors he loathes and the babies who make his learning environment intolerable. He endures all manner of promises to be absolutely crushed in chess.

Despite his victory in the hallway, the words Robert placed in his ear worm their way into Ciel's heart and into his mind. They sit and wriggle and eat quietly while the sun shines down upon the statue of St. Sebastian and the two boys who sit beneath it. Ciel buries his face in his collar because the days have become chilly and he has a fever and his body is at war with all things. He coughs. He coughs again and the hand on his back, patting him, is a kind hand.

"You need a hat or something," Alois observes and he is correct, but the winter clothing has not yet been delivered to the school, and so boys wear extra layers of blouses and trousers and go about their business as best as they can. Except Alois. He has a furnace for a heart and he still wears his shorts--his socks are still only thrown on for show. Ciel believes Alois will run around naked in the snow if he is allowed...

Which only summons the visual of a boy with a foul mouth who ended up dead in the snow.

Robert had not lied. Ciel made inquiries between class of chaps who were so surprised he was speaking to him that they gave him truthful answers in blinking voices and nodded to others who had been at the home for more than three years. They did not know details. A couple of them remembered that there was a boy named Cowlick and noted that he was quiet and frail. He received the nickname when he was twelve because he actually had a dark cowlick streaked with white.

White hair on a boy not yet fourteen. What kind of life could cause such a thing? Ciel knows, and there is something pushing at his consciousness-an idea-that Ciel does not want to look at. It creeps into the background, lurking in the shadow of his denial, and waits.

Ciel does not tell Alois about Robert or his own subsequent short and fruitless investigation. Robert  _knew_ things and Alois might consider an action that was altogether too rash for Ciel to manage quietly. And that would be dangerous for new reasons.

Ciel looks off beyond the south building. He cannot see it from here, but there is no reason to believe it is not there if Robert's other words had been true.

"Hey, Ciel. Hey." Alois shakes him slightly.

"Stop."

Alois stops. "What is it?" He looks across the courtyard, following Ciel's gaze. "Do you see something?"

Ciel is silent. "There is a cemetery beyond the south building. Boys from this school are buried there."

Alois's eyebrows draw together. "That's so fucking cheery. What a nice thought on a sunny day. Do you wanna go visit? We could have a little picnic with all of the poor fucking dead boys. 'Pardon me, Long-Dead Freddy, would you pass the scones and clotted cream? There's a good chap.'"

Ciel stares at Alois. The macabre imagination and the absolute  _fearlessness_...

"Bone china. Get it? We'd have a tea service of bone china. And maybe the dead prefer finger sandwiches of actual fingers." Alois takes Ciel's hands from his book and holds them. "You need gloves." The blond-haired boy's palms are warm. They feel pleasant. Ciel sighs.

"We shouldn't be out here. You're fucking sick." Alois is insistent.

"I am well enough."

"No, you aren't getting better. You don't sleep and you barely eat. And you're not on me about my 'go' 'come' 'walk' and 'The boy that trots the narrow stream falls in and ceases to dream.'" Alois stops. "Come to think of it, this primer is kind of fucking creepy. What little kid should know how to read a sentence like that?"

Suddenly death is everywhere.

Three years. Not a death in St. Sebastian's since his arrival. How did the statistics bear up to the time frame? According to his sources, the boys who died had nothing in common. There was nothing to link them at all. They ranged in age and in stature and in physical appearance. Where Cowlick was quiet and studious, the last boy to be found dead, Pratcher, had been his polar opposite. It's true that the stairs were steep and hard. Falling upon them in the wrong way would most certainly break a neck. And being locked out of the building in extreme cold was a death sentence, but one boy said that Pratcher was found in the middle of the courtyard, not far from this statue. If he had been alive when the cold descended, he would have died under a door or at a window because he certainly would have tried to get in...

There was a murderer in St. Sebastian's Home for Boys, and if Ciel allowed himself one solitary second to do what Alois did, to  _feel everything_ , then he knew the killer's name already...

"Ciel?"

The charcoal-haired boy blinks. His heart is beating hard.

"I gotta piss."

Ciel's breath emerges in a huff and he lets go of the thread. Buries it. Hides it.

Alois winces. "I mean it."

"All of a sudden? Really." Ciel's voice is bland. This is the now. The now is ridiculous and merely infuriating, not deadly.

"It's the cold. It can happen all of a sudden." Alois bites his bottom lip and stares at the door of the north building. "It's too far and I don't wanna leave you here. I really gotta go."

"What do you think you are doing?" Ciel is fully awake and his fever senses sharpen as Alois begins to fumble with his shorts.

"Just real quick. No one will see..."

Ciel looks up from his book and fixes Alois with his most intensely-disgusted expression yet. "Alois Trancy, you will  _not_  relieve yourself on this statue."

"Just  _two seconds_."

"Go and do your business like a civilized human being. I will not be seen with a barbarian." His tone states that the matter is closed. Ciel goes back to  _The Prince_.

Alois blows air out of his mouth. "I don't want to leave you here alone. Stupid fucking shit happens when I don't see you."

Ciel calms. He understands only too well. "Then come back quickly."

Alois looks up at the sun as if gauging the time by its position in the sky.

"I'll be right back. If you go anyplace, Ciel, I'll do something crazy..."

He can accept this. Ciel picks up his book and re-seats himself in view of the windows on the first floor of the north building so that Alois can see him waiting. "I will be here."

Alois hesitates, nods and takes off towards the building at breakneck speed.

Ciel sighs, coughs again. He allows himself to cough harder, to draw in a bigger breath, but it is cold and not good for him. He stares at the words of the page. They are all but memorized now. This moment is a strange repeat of so many moments that have slipped through time. For two years Ciel has been here, alone, beneath this statue of a saint seeking cold refuge from the web of despair and pain that waited for him within. Days of this play out in his memory. Days and days and days...the length of them. The time when his pride was indomitable...

...When he was lonely beyond words and this cold statue was his only connection to hope.

Ciel takes a deep breath. He coughs it out again. When he turns his head into his collar, his eyes are drawn to a strange figure walking towards him from the North building exit.

Tall. Raven-haired. The man is in a black overcoat which conceals most of his body, but beneath it is a starched white shirt, a black tie. Ciel believes he may be experiencing some kind of dream hallucination. He blinks and look up again, but the stranger is steadily approaching. The man is pale, but that is not remarkable. His face is pleasant to look at, smooth-shaven, and there is a small smile at the corners of his lips.

He has striking red eyes. They are fixed on him. Ciel feels a tremor in his bones and cannot speak even when the stranger stops at the base of the statue next to him. They stare at each other for what feels like an age before the black-coated gentleman (because he had to be a gentleman in his attire) turns a suddenly critical gaze to the statue.

"Forgive me. Have I intruded upon your reading hour?"

Ciel finds his voice. "Perhaps, but an exception will be made this time."

The stranger's smile widens. He turns and the black hair falls forward in a long and oddly haphazard fashion for a London gentleman. Those crimson eyes regard the open page from his lofty vantage.

"Ah. Machiavelli. A fine literary pursuit for a young man who wishes to rule his world." He reads from the text. "'There is no avoiding war, it can only be postponed to the advantage of your enemy.' Heavy words for a young man, but undeniably wise--some wars are unavoidable."

Ciel's eyebrows narrow. "You do not know me. Who are you?" Ciel snaps the book closed and stands up to get a closer look at this puzzle, though the action hardly brings him to anything of a level with the enigmatic stranger. Despite the fact that Ciel is certain he has never seen this man in his life, there is something quite familiar about him.

"No one of import. I have come on behalf of my employer to assess the state of this statue. The estate was given to believe it was in too unsafe a condition to be allowed to remain."

Ciel scoffs openly, hatefully. "That was a bald-faced lie as your inspection will no doubt reveal."

The timbre of the raven-haired man's voice is like the wood of an oak tree: dark, warm, strong. "You must treasure this statue then, to speak so fiercely in its defense." The softness of the tone is one that savors the understanding of a shared secret. Ciel feels himself clinging to the secret in spite of himself.

"Again, you presume too much about me. Do you represent the anonymous benefactor that has helped maintained this institution then?"

"I do indeed, young master."

Ciel makes a face at the clear condescension that would give a nobleman's servant leave to call an orphaned nobody a "master," but he also cannot deny that the phrase has a pleasing ring to it.

"What is your name?"

The man places a hand over his heart and bows slightly. "Sebastian."

Ciel raises an eyebrow over his good eye. "Why, then, I would say your parents had remarkable insight for your future employment, or you are lying to me. It is imprudent to lie to children."

"As it so happens, I agree entirely; I never lie to children or otherwise. My employer calls me Sebastian. Will that suffice?"

"Then your employer must be an insufferably eccentric bastard."

Sebastian smiles knowingly. His eyes are not frightening even though they are the color of blood. Ciel finds he does not mind looking at the amusement there.

And then the red eyes travel up to the statue. "Forgive me, I must complete my inspection."

Ciel stands back as Sebastian nimbly jumps upon the stone border as if he is made of air. His white-gloved hands touch the monument with gentleness and reverence and Ciel heartily approves; this servant will return with a good report. The board will never ever give Claude Faustus his way, and St. Sebastian will stand here in perpetuity, even after Ciel is long gone and dead and cold. It is comforting. He sighs, relieved.

The servant is unusually deft. Despite the heavy cloth of his coat, he runs his fingers over seams in the metal, he traces the lines of the arrows pinioning the martyr, and his face turns towards the sky in an almost eerie facsimile of the statue's own plaintive gaze. Finally, Sebastian descends. He leaps to the ground, lands in a half crouch, and then brings himself slowly to his full height. Ciel can't help but be impressed by the acrobatics, even if they are completely unnecessary--Sebastian's grace is almost inhuman.

"Is your inspection complete?"

"It is."

"And?"

"The statue is worn. It has been forced to watch through many seasons, but it remains steadfast."

"Good." Ciel nods. "Perhaps you shall tell your employer that it requires cleaning and polish. If he was willing to spend the funds to repair a statue that only orphaned boys gazed upon, surely he can afford to keep it presentable. It should be a simple matter of appealing to his pride as a benefactor."

Sebastian smiles.

"As it just so happens, my employer has a great deal of pride. Likely, such a thing would not be inappropriate. Whom may I say makes the request?"

"Phantomhive. Ciel Phantomhive." The boy turns from the statue to the man. Sebastian tilts his head and his eyes are calculating. Sparkling.

"What is it?"

"Forgive me, but that name is familiar..."

"I used to live in London before the townhouse burned down and killed my parents."

"My condolences for your loss." Sebastian places a finger to his chin, thinking. "Funtom Toys."

"My father owned a small toy company by that name."

"And what happened to the company upon your father's death?"

Ciel blinks. "I do not know. I have been here since they released me from the hospital three years ago. Perhaps it went into a trust? It could easily have been taken by creditors. I know nothing about it--my father did not share the business with me, just the toys."

Ciel sighs at the memory.

"Hmm. Interesting."

The young master's eye narrows. "Do you know something about this, Sebastian?"

The beat of silence is too revealing. Ciel's eye narrows as Sebastian gives him a slight bow.

"My business here is concluded, and I will be certain to give my employer a fair report and your message. Whenever you are able to leave this place, or should you require further contact..." Sebastian reaches into his coat. With two fingers he draws forth a simple calling card and hands it down for the small fingers to take and read.

There is no name, just an address.

An address Ciel recognizes. It summons memories of a large estate, green grass, expansive grounds. His mother and father take tea together at a glass-topped table on a stone patio near a garden of white roses. He is holding a brightly colored ball and it is Spring...

"This is impossible..."

Sebastian places his finger to his lips in a universal sign that there is a secret here, and one of them knows it. He smiles.

"Heed Machiavelli's advice--do not postpone your war, young master."

Ciel’s heart skips a beat. "Who are you? I demand a truthful answer!"

"I am Sebastian. But you already knew that..."

This creature is suddenly insufferable and secretive and his eyes are warlike yet soft. A breeze gets into Ciel's lungs which brings on a cough which leads to another and another and he feels dizzy. He hears his chest wheeze slightly and realizes that it has been shrinking for a few hours but his heart is racing. What is he doing with a card that has this address? What is happening? Where is Alois? When he looks up to the blue sky, the sun shines on his face and the clouds do not move. Still. Slight. The sun is hot, like Alois's hair. It streams all over his face and his neck. It exists above everything. He feels so light...he feels very light...there is war and chess and dead boys in the snow but St. Sebastian is here in the middle of it. He was always here. And he is still watching...

He thinks he hears Sebastian's voice bidding him to rest.

Ciel feels no pain. When he crumbles to the ground losing his senses, there are arms holding him, white-gloved hands at his head. The ground is warm like Alois's hair and Ciel sleeps.

(to be continued...)


	10. The Wicked Ones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ciel has an encounter in a dream and is gradually coming to a conclusion. Alois is getting better at chess, but not fast enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was published elsewhere in 2013. It suffered a lengthy hiatus because I had a baby, but I'm attempting to scrape some time together to continue it. If you like it, please comment. :)
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has supported this fic through the years.

* * *

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

-Nicolo Machiavelli

* * *

 

**Ch 10: The Wicked Ones**

Alois is impatient even in the toilet. He pushes it all out in a fast stream, not even willing to savor that lovely sensation of post-piss relief because Ciel is sitting all by himself in the courtyard. "All by himself" is the worst possible phrase in the English language. He hates it. No one should ever have to think it let alone be it.

_Yes yes finish okay. Shake shake done!_

Alois sprints away and almost passes up the washing. Almost. His feet are in front of him when he jerks his body to a stop and turns to stupidly regard the ceramic basin. If he touches Ciel with these hands that just touched his...well...it's a dirty thing. It's dirty and Ciel is his little lord and God, the look on his face if he knew he'd touched  _it_  and didn't wash afterwards...

Alois wants to touch him with his dirty hands...

" _Oh heathen barbarian...wash thy fucking hands!"_

_Fine fine! Shut up stupid little voice in my head. You don't even sound like him!_

Alois splashes in the water. He murders a bar of soap with slippery fingers, and then he's dousing them and drying them on his shorts as he runs out of the lavatory.

Three steps from the entrance and almost at full tilt, he slams into a tall, unyielding body. The collision is hard enough that the boy with the blond hair is thrown back a pace or two. The wall of a gentleman he just hit reaches up a hand to smooth the front of his coat, and the gaze that Alois sucks in as a gasp is yellow and annoyed.

They are both annoyed until that very second their eyes meet.

Claude fucking Faustus.

Alois takes another step back because  _holy shit_.  _Holy fucking hell here he is, the fucking bastard himself. Right here. Right fucking here._  Emotions inside him slide all around like the soap through his fingers and they all vie for attention: hot I'll kill you rage, fear, glee, fuck you, asshole.  _Goddamn asshole_! His right hand dips automatically into his blazer pocket for a killing thing but it isn't there. No, that's not one of the things he has anymore. And then Ciel's face and voice and weeks of all of Ciel's hurt peek up from the protective place in Alois's heart where he has been keeping them.

The little general's voice orders him to retreat. Because this is something Ciel has been dreading, Alois knows. This is something that Ciel has flat out  _feared_  with his rules and his orders and _..._

_Fuck that. Never. I'll never run from this asshole..._

No one in the corridor. Everyone's doing something else. This is fine. This is just  _perfect._

Alois stands up straight. He coughs lightly into a fist, and then he curtsies low with his eyes never leaving that piss yellow.

"Good afternoon, Headmaster Faustus...you evil fucking son of a bitch." His tone is polite and his smile is broad, crazy, oh my because  _I would so kill him now if I could._  If he could. Could he?

The headmaster's eye glitter. They shine and don't look in the slightest bit concerned, but they should. They will.

"An interesting salutation, Mr. Macken. Your reputation as a foul-mouthed uncouth brat precedes you. I would take care to school that unruly tongue, or you may find it gets you into quite a bit of trouble."

His voice is soft but deep. Almost bored, but not. Edged like a hidden blade. Threatening without a threatening tone. Alois hates it. It's crawling with bugs and worms and snakes and demonic things and, frankly, this man is not like the dozens of others he's had trade with. He's getting that now. Faustus is not a fool, and there is a sinister aura around him. Alois shivers, but he is not afraid. Not of this bastard, not ever.

"Oh, yes, you'd probably love to know all about my tongue, wouldn't you? Because that's what you like--little boys and all of their bits. This whole school is your buffet table and you think you can pick up tongues and eyes and souls and walk away dabbing the corners of your fucking mouth with a full belly, but not anymore."

Alois swallows because  _I just said that_  and clenches his fists because he will definitely not run. He wants to be braver in this space, more intimidating, standing eye to eye with Claude fucking Faustus. He wants to be grown up already so that he can look down on him--so he can laugh at him while he gouges his eyes out. But now that Alois is in his presence, he can feel it, the weight of this bastard's sins, the broken souls of his victims, and they are all but moaning and calling and begging and this man is truly terrifying. In spite of that or perhaps because of it, Alois will not move from this space until he has won this round in some way; he has his pride.

When Faustus raises an eyebrow at the blond-haired boy, Alois can see himself being regarded in a new light. Or, more accurately, a new darkness. The atmosphere changes immediately. No longer is he simply a bratty whore to this man...and maybe it would have been safer if he could have remained just that forever.

_Fuck "safer."_

"You have an interesting way to achieve your ends. That is, if your desired end is in solitary confinement at best."

Alois was committed and he didn't care because he was  _here_  goddammit, and this bastard had been getting away with too much. The fact that he was within ten miles of the home meant that Ciel was in danger, and that was un-fucking-acceptable.

"My desired end is to bury you, and if you lay one fucking finger on Ciel again, I'll tell everyone. I'll fucking climb the walls and shout it from the rooftops just how much the headmaster  _loves_  his little boys." Alois's voice is quiet but shrouded in this kind of giddy half laugh because he's so goddamn happy to finally say these words. He's delirious with joy.

When Claude takes a step forward, however, the laughter is forgotten and Alois moves a step back soberly. He's not stupid--he won't get within arm's reach of this long-armed fucker. He stares him down, those yellow eyes behind twin panes of glass.

"Interesting. And who are you to Ciel, pray?"

Alois smiles. "I'm his fucking white knight and he's my little black king. My name is  _Alois Trancy_  now, not Jim Macken, and Ciel is  _mine_ , Claude Faustus. _Ciel Phantomhive is mine_."

He likes the narrowed glare—it’s a point to him, he knows it. He's gotten under that headmaster's skin with that. Yes. Ciel's warm presence, his feverish little brow, his thin arms and small torso and his precious lips and his eye--that one eye that can feel a million things and hide it all from everyone but his white knight--it's all and only for him, for Alois. Just for him.

"Chess references from a low-born whore child? I will give you this, Mr. Macken, you have some creativity and bravado." The headmaster's expression has become a poker face and impossible to read. It makes him more dangerous, and Alois knows it, but he's not stopping until this round is his. Entirely his for sure. His own pride demands it.

"Creativity? You haven't begun to see creativity." He smiles, "But you will. And I'm learning about chess, enough to know that taller and stronger and more powerful does not mean shit in game of wits."

"A game of wits? Interesting. Then you should be aware of this simple fact..." Faustus moves fast. He is really fucking fast. In a blink his hand has a grip around Alois's shirt front and the boy with the blond hair is hoisted at least two feet into the air. And now he  _can_  see the headmaster eye to eye as his low, venomous voice continues. "...you are nothing but a pawn in my game with Ciel,  _Jim Macken_. And pawns are meant to be sacrificed..."

Alois's eyes shimmer with joy. He's pissed him off. Claude Faustus is fucking  _angry_  at him. This is the greatest day of his whole fucking life. When Alois laughs it is maniacal but at the same time light and childish. A weight comes away from his chest even as he grabs at the hands tightening at his throat.

"You're right. You are fucking right, except I'm not  _your_  pawn, you fucking moron. I'm not your pawn, at all, and I know the goddamn rule. I may just be fucking  _expendable_  now, but if I can make it to the other side of the board, then I can be any piece I want."

Alois smiles as he watches the headmaster's eyes narrow further.

"Did you forget that little rule? Don't forget it, because you know what piece I'm going to be when I get there? I've already decided and you can fucking laugh at it, I don't care." His voice becomes soft. "You'll have to Queen me. And believe me, once I have the power she has on Ciel's side, it'll be check-fucking-mate."

Robin egg blue eyes spark and shimmer with electricity, boring into that sickly insect-like yellow.

Alois grabs Claude's hands and digs his fingernails into them, but the Headmaster does not relent. He is silent. It's stealing the wind from Alois's sails. His perfect victory is suffering an unforeseen setback…

"Put me the fuck down, asshole. And stay the hell away from Ciel."

The headmaster's words are very soft. "It is imprudent to claim something that already belongs to someone else..." And his fingers tighten.

 _Shit_.  _Maybe I won too fucking much..._

"Headmaster Faustus."

A voice approaches from the other end of the hallway but Alois cannot see the speaker from his vantage. Nevertheless, the headmaster releases him as if he had suddenly been burned and turns to face it.

"Michaelis." It is not a pleased tone.

Alois edges to the side and unconsciously rubs his throat. The stranger is as tall as the headmaster with hair just as dark but his eyes are red. What the fuck is with these men and creepy eyes? Alois is not disappointed with the interruption. He had gotten what he wanted and then things became a little...scary. Alois knew crazy. He  _was_  crazy, but the headmaster was not right on more levels than the blond-haired boy could count. And maybe he should have known that, because even Ciel couldn't stand against him forever. In fact, in three minutes Alois wonders how Ciel has managed to maintain his sanity for so long confronted by six feet of such darkness...

Ciel! He needs to get back there. He needs to sneak away and get fucking back there, to safety, right fucking now.

The stranger continues. "I've completed my inspection."

"Of course you have. And the verdict?"

"St. Sebastian will continue his vigil. Discomforting news to you, I'm afraid."

It is Alois's turn to narrow his eyes. There is something strange about this encounter, but he doesn't know. It feels almost dreamlike and unreal...

"Your personification is misplaced, Mr. Michaelis. St. Sebastian is merely a  _statue_  in the courtyard and it is powerless to do anything but stand and be a pathetic martyred symbol of weakness."

For some reason, the stranger smiles at this. What the fuck is going on? Alois inches away from the pair, perfectly happy to yield this freaky stage to another.

"And speaking of martyr, on behalf of my employer, I am distressed at the condition in which these boys are attired in this chill. One of them has taken leave of his senses in the courtyard as a result of overexposure, no doubt."

The boy with the blond hair suddenly stands up straight.

_Fuck! Ciel!_

Screw this. He left Ciel alone for too long. He left him alone! What was he fucking thinking, having his showdown with the headmaster when Ciel...

Alois takes off down the hall at breakneck speed.

"I carried the young man to his bed." The stranger begins his next sentence overly loudly, as if he knew Alois needed to know. Not important now. Instead of the courtyard, Alois makes a beeline for the dormitory, his heart pounding, heating his head, bringing a wave of self-loathing over him.

_Never again. I'll never leave you again, Ciel. I swear to God. I swear swear it. I'm never leaving you again. Please be okay!_

* * *

 

Crushing weight.

Three things that he can feel and smell. Three things his senses can give him even though he can't move. He can't move because of the weight and he can't breathe because of the smoke and he can't yell because he has no breath. The pain...the pain is so secondary. It's mostly in his head, the pain. It's big and foreign and utterly  _wrong,_  he knows that. And if he can't breathe and he can't move then he is going to die.

_I don't want to die! Someone! Save me!_

"Over here!"

Loud voice. Father? No. Not father. He can hear movement but he can't see anything and he can't breathe to say, "yes! Here I am!" but it doesn't matter because the darkness is lifting slightly. Air. But only a little.

"Crikey, it's a kid." The voice is close now. He finds nerves that go to his hand. He makes his brain move it, reaching out for that voice, holding onto it with everything.

"Get a stretcher! Get the medics! A little boy. He's still alive. Hurry!" That was fainter-towards someone else.  _No. Bring the voice back to me. I need it_.

Things are shifting. There's a grating sound all around him. His head really hurts. Maybe he's still dying.

"Can you hear me, sonny? Hey, can you hear my voice? Listen to my voice." There's some air here and the smoke is rolling out of his lungs. They seize. He coughs.

"Oh God. Thank God. Thank you, sweet merciful Christ. You hang in there, young man. We're getting you some help. Just stay with me."

Hands are on him. His body is moving. He hurts but someone is here. Maybe he will live. He was fighting to live. Maybe he will live. Where is Mummy?

"Holy Christ, he's...his...head..." A stranger's voice. Not the kind voice.

"Shut it, Peters. Just...don't say anything. All good, yeah? Just help me here. Gently."

"M..."

"Can you hear me?"

"M..mum. Father..."

A pause.

"Your Mum and Dad are waiting for you. They want you to listen me and let us take care of you, okay? My name is Fred. You can even call me Freddy if you like. I'm a policeman, a good guy. You're hurt, but you are going to be okay. Talk only if you can, all right? Just relax for me and we'll get you fixed up."

He's weightless. There are light and dark blurs. His body feels weak but there is a kind voice. A policeman. He's supposed to trust the policemen. Fred. Mum and Dad are waiting. Take a deep breath now. It's not smoky anymore at all.

"C-Ciel."

"What? Ciel? Is that your name?"

"Yes."

"All right then, Ciel." He can hear the voice smile. That's nice, to hear a voice smile. Has he ever noticed that voices can smile? But...so sick. He feels sick. Head hurts.

"H..hurt. My head."

Loud sounds of water rushing and men shouting. Where is the voice? He panics for a moment. He finds his fingers again and they are attached. He reaches up to his face, to where it feels the most wrong. But he does not touch his face...is this his face? It feels too hard. It's not his face then. What is this on his head? Ah! It hurts!

A hand suddenly grabs his hand, but it is not hurting him. It is holding his hand. And then another hand clasps it gently and his own hand is swallowed by the warmth.

"No no. Don't try to touch it. Relax, Ciel. I'm here, all right? You've got a bit of an owie on your head, I won't lie to you, but you're a strong boy, right? You're a strong boy. We'll get you some help for it. Will you trust me?"

Ciel blinks. It's fat and wrong and hurting his head. That strange thing on his head (in his head?) feels like it's growing, feeding on him, taking root in his brain, living there without permission. It's not right at all. His head feels ten times too heavy. He blinks again. So wrong. But he can see a little now out of his left eye. A face. He sees a man in blue. A familiar hat. A bobby. He's smiling softly like mum would if she were here. Ciel is on a stretcher. Then he's in a carriage of some kind and Fred is telling the driver to be quick but smooth. Take a good route, please.

Fred Aberline.

_Too kind for his own good. He'll never make it past constable if he spends so much time at the bedside of half blind orphans telling them that they will be all right._

Ciel picks up his teacup.

_And he promised to write to me, but he was a liar, clearly. Adults all lie. None of them can be trusted. They are pathetic and ignorant and do whatever they want when it suits them..._

Ciel takes a sip of his tea…

Oh. Tea could taste like this too? Not just the thin version he had been choking down for three and half years? Yes. Once upon a time, it had tasted good.

"This morning's tea is Twinning's Earl Grey..."

As if Ciel could have misplaced this taste. He wants to berate the warm voice for such idiocy...and then it all strikes him finally.

Sebastian, that man, is at his bedside with a tea tray in hand and a smile. He is attired as the butler of a nobleman. His smile is congenial but always with that hint of a secret. Annoying.

"Not all adults destroy what they touch...but many of them are ignorant, I suppose."

Who gave this butler leave to be inside his mind? To know his thoughts? Does he know them? Does he know this butler? He has met him once. Only once. Under the statue...

"The memories...this...I'm dreaming." It is a statement. And saying it finally drags Ciel into an understanding that none of this right now is real at all, except it feels like a shadow of truth. The boy with the charcoal hair takes stock of this dream world.

The room is large, doubly so the bed he is reclining in. The windows are tall. The drapes have been pulled aside to let in the morning sun and it sprinkles his crisp white coverlet with a warm golden glow.

"The fire is in the past. It is gone. Who are you? Are you merely a dream form of a stranger I saw once or is it truly  _you_  taking advantage of my sleep to pester me with thoughts of things I cannot change?"

"Asleep? I must beg to disagree; you've been 'awake' for some time, young master."

"Do not toy with me, Sebastian." Ciel is confused and yet he isn't. Funny how a dream can turn the most outrageous fantasy into the closest facsimile of reality. He sets his cup on his saucer with a tiny clink and looks up with his one good eye. "You're late."

"Quite the contrary. If you will pardon me,  _you_ are the one who is late, young master."

"Ridiculous. If I am the master, then I decide when I am late and when I am not. What are you playing at, Sebastian? You've kept me waiting for  _years._ I order you to give me a straight answer."

Sebastian's smile broadens but it is not pleased nor secretive at all. It is sad. Pitying.

_Do not pity me!_

"The truth then?"

Ciel sits up, his heart pounding. "Yes. The truth. Tell me."

His butler places the tray back on the tea cart and then smoothly approaches the bed. His red eyes are fascinating and deep. Blood of martyrs. Blood of the fallen. Blood of life.

Sebastian speaks one sentence. In this dream his words fall like silver threads that loop and pool upon the coverlet...they land about Ciel's fingers and settle there just out of reach. The young master with the charcoal hair swallows and then dares to touch them. The words he does not want to hear twine around his fingers and he pulls...

" _This will not be easy, but nothing that is worth obtaining is ever easy...and if it is, then you have made the wrong kind of deal..."_

Darkness...endless darkness...

* * *

 

When Ciel opens his eye, Alois's bright, shining hair is on his face. A softness and a wetness on his forehead. He moves slightly.

"Ciel...I'm sorry. God...please wake up."

Soft pressure on his eyebrow, on his cheek.

The boy with the charcoal hair takes stock of himself. He is in a bed, but this is his own true bed. Moreover, he feels much clearer, refreshed, as if he has just experienced a long and restful night's sleep. When was the last time that had happened? When he moves his shoulders he becomes aware of something in his hand. Smooth and flat. A paper card.

_That was not a dream. That part...but how..._

"Ciel, say something."

He glances up at Alois and rubs his thumb over the enigma in his hand.

"Where is my book?"

Alois blinks.

"The fucking  _book_?"

"Is it here?"

"How should I know? What do I care about your-"

" _Look_  for it, Alois." Ciel's face is set as he moves slightly to sit up.

"Really?" His companion lets out an exasperated sigh but he looks down stupidly at the ground and around the bed. "I don't see it."

"Then it was left at the statue."

Alois stomps a foot on the ground. "Then it can stay at the goddamn statue. I'm not leaving you here to go find it. You fucking passed out and I was only gone a few minutes!"

Ciel gives him a sour look and silently slides the card from his hand into his blazer pocket. Sebastian brought him here, right to his bed. He knows it was Sebastian. A thousand thoughts race in his mind. One question is chosen from the cacophony and brought to the microscope to inspect more closely.

_Can the divine have a physical presence on this earth?_

It feels so long ago now, but Ciel remembers a rainy morning when he had gazed at the lifeless statue in the courtyard and thought  _If you don't help me,_   _then I refuse to believe in God, and demons are the only things that exist in this world._

He pulls another question from the maelstrom that spontaneously appeared with the inspection of the last one:

 _Could angels and demons exist?_ The card in his pocket burns him slightly, the unreality of that coincidence. And then:  _If they do exist, what ridiculous rules do they play at?_

The silver words from the dream play across his memory like a secret code-never uttered, but present, nevertheless. " _But nothing that is worth obtaining is ever easy..."_

"Enough." Ciel ignores the streaming fury of his questions for the time being, turns himself and stands up. He feels strong. No fever clouds his judgment and he has a book to collect and something to ponder.  _"Do not postpone your war, young master."_

Impossible. He will do this the only way he can to insure that he has what he  _needs_. What he  _wants_  is irrelevant. He has been living without things he wants for years. They hardly matter. His first step to the door, however, is impeded by a pair of hot arms that fling around his shoulders and squeeze him, surprising him utterly.

"You're...you're okay? Really? You're not sick?" Alois presses his forehead to Ciel's and holds it there.

Ciel sighs and lets the boy do as he wants. Some of the tension in his shoulders dissipates, but when Alois tries to kiss him, Ciel pushes a hand at his mouth and collects himself a pace apart.

"I am...better. If you insist on shadowing me, then come. I want my book."

As Ciel stalks off, Alois quickly outpaces him to take the lead. When they get to the door, he stops, holding the smaller boy up, and looks both ways down the hall.

"Okay, let's go."

Ciel's eye narrows at Alois's back.

"What are you about?"

"Checking the coast. The headmaster is wandering around somewhere." Alois says it nonchalantly, but Ciel stops in his tracks.

"What?"

Alois halts and then turns slowly, pursing his lips. "Well, he is."

"Did you see him or did you hear this news secondhand?"

"You could say...I ran into him..."

Ciel's face goes ashen. "Alois..."

"What? Nothing! Nothing happened. I'm unarmed,  _remember_? Nothing happened...and this other tall man interrupted us anyway and said you had passed out and I just ran to find you." Alois is casual about it. Flippant even. Ciel's heart is racing. At all costs, those two must  _not_  have an encounter. There was no telling how Alois's actions and words would put him in jeopardy. The blond-haired boy takes his arm and tugs him.

"I love that book. Did I ever tell you how much I do? Let's go find it. You don't want anyone else to take it, right?"

"You hate the book, if I recall."

"Yeah, I hate it, but I love you, so I think I'm starting to love things you love."

"If that is so, then heed my warning and stay far away from Faustus..."

Ciel ignores the expression on Alois's face as he puzzles it out, as he picks apart Ciel's words of potential sentimentality, looking for what he wants. His proof.

"Ciel...you mean..."

But Ciel has pushed him aside with his shoulder and is already several paces in front of him before Alois can catch up.

 _Let him do what he wants...except that. Do not let him find Faustus, because that foul creature cannot be defeated, only endured._  And Ciel has new, growing, and specific fears about the impossibility of even enduring the headmaster now.

The blond-haired boy is a bright contrast of thoughts to Ciel's darkness. He is not mentally encumbered by the mystery of Ciel's dramatic improvement. Not at all. He is distracted by the joy of having just been told  _indirectly kind of in a way_  that Ciel loves him.

Ahh. Sometimes things Ciel says have a tendency to get lodged into his brain and then he just wants to do nothing but play with them and poke them and put them in his mouth. He has no time to waste energy on other thoughts, but if he did, he'd be forced to listen to the inner voice that says "You should probably tell Ciel about what happened outside of the lav..." But Ciel's reaction just to the  _idea_  of crossing Faustus's path made him look like he might be headed back to bed.

And that was not okay. No. Why? Because there were other thoughts in his head like "Luca died when he was alone" and he was getting used to the idea of being able to shake that voice off completely at least where Ciel was concerned. Ciel couldn't die like that--Alois would never ever allow it.

As they look for (and find) the precious book, all Ciel will tell Alois about what happened in the courtyard is that a man came out to inspect the statue and then he lost consciousness, presumably due to fatigue and illness. It matched up with dark-haired, red-eyed stranger's account to Faustus at least. By all accounts, nothing else had happened to him, and Ciel appeared to be refreshed when he awoke. It didn't stop Alois from feeling and accepting a healthy dose of momentary self-loathing for having left Ciel alone in the first place. When he says, "that bloke didn't  _do_  anything to you while you were unconscious, did he?" Alois is rewarded with a sound of disgust. That would just have to do for a "no."

_Fuck. Thank God._

* * *

 

At exactly 8 o'clock that night, Ciel and Alois leave the common room with a candle stub. They must dodge a few caretakers and a cleaning woman to avoid being questioned, but in a few moments the two are standing in the north corridor of the west wing.

"Well? Which room do you want?"

Ciel taps a door. "Are you certain you can open it quickly?"

Alois giggles and fishes a brass skeleton key from his pocket. "My lord, I can open any classroom you want."

The boy with the charcoal hair blinks.

"How did you come by that?"

"How did I come by it? I stole it, of course, from my reading professor. Weeks ago. I feel naked without plenty of bolt holes and hiding spot. This key only opens the classrooms, so I didn't know how useful it would be, but he just...left it out so brazenly every single day. It was like he was asking for it. The poor bastard thinks he just misplaced it." Alois smiles deviously at the recollection. "I can pick locks, but this makes it so much easier."

"Hmm. Well done." He purses his lips together. "But do not get caught with it on you."

Alois is practically glowing as he giggles and unlocks the room. "I've got places for things. This isn't like prison-- I can practically go anywhere I want when I want. As long as you're here, this place might as well be all of England for me."

The lock turns and the door opens. Alois mock bows and gestures to the interior with a dramatic flourish and smirk. Ciel ignores the theatrics and the two slip inside darkly, and this is why they brought a candle stub. Alois lights it and Ciel instructs him to leave it on the professor's desk away from the window and closer to the clock.

"Hey, Ciel, this is perfect..." The tentative glow of the small firelight highlights Alois's hair as he looks around the room.

"Perfect in what way?"

"Well, obviously...you brought me up here so we could do indecent things among the shadows, right?"

The boy with the charcoal hair rolls his eye at the pleading note in that voice.

"We are waiting for the post."

"The post?" Only dim features can be made out as Ciel navigates his way to the window casement, Alois creeping behind him curiously. "Why the post?"

"I want to know exactly when it arrives and who handles it."

"That is the lamest excuse for getting me alone into a dark room I have ever heard."

"If you do not wish to stay, you may find your own way to the door."

Completely defeated on one front, Alois's makes an exaggerated sigh of defeat. However, there is plenty of interest in this clandestine operation to keep his curiosity invested. He leans over the windowsill on his elbows, close enough to Ciel that they are hip to hip, taking care to stay out of view from below.

"Fine then. What is so important about the post all of a sudden? Are you expecting a letter?"

"No."

There is half a moon tonight. As his eye grows accustomed to the darkness, Ciel can see the metaphorical ribbon of moonlight stretching from the front of the building down and around a small hill and off into the nebulous distance where a pitch black treeline rises. St. Sebastian's Home for Boys is at least an hour outside London and there is practically nothing between it and the busy city--a perfectly isolated little world. Ciel vaguely remembers the facade of the building, recalls the engraved lintel over the door that read  _St. Sebastian's Home for Boys est. 1776_ the day he was escorted through those front doors, and he has not seen them since.

This fact and Robert's words have been tumbling around along with the growing collection of questions in Ciel's mind.

" _You don't know what happens here, do you?"_

Those words, said and proved so matter-of-factly, sting him. He is studying a book about ruling men, and yet he has been missing the heart of Machiavelli's text: to be a good ruler one must first have a perfect grasp of the population and environment of the country he wishes to rule.

Ciel is not entirely at fault for allowing a literal blind spot to become a figurative one. He had been vulnerable and young and recently orphaned when he arrived, trying to put himself back together from tragedy and then...and then too many things happened too quickly. The boy with the charcoal hair and the one good eye and the too-thin body had become entangled in a web cast by the headmaster before he could get his bearings. And his life since that time has been immersed in a personal and exclusive drama which isolates him from others even as he walks among them. Looking back upon it now, surely the headmaster had planned for even that.

Ciel slips his hand into his blazer pocket and feels the card there. It contains a scant few lines of an address he knows.

" _If you desire further contact..."_

For too long Ciel has confined himself to a frigid and solitary existence. It is not that he wants or needs attention, but if he is going to rule the world then he must have contact with it. And the world needs to know that he is here and that his existence cannot be dismissed even if he cannot legally escape this place before he is sixteen.

"Hey, hey." Alois whispers. He sticks his finger against the glass and Ciel watches a carriage with a lantern wend its way up the road. "Is that it, do you think?"

Ciel squints one good eye into the distance and speaks softly. "Alois. I want you to observe everything you can from this. Pay close attention. The method and time of this transaction may become critical."

He feels the blond-haired boy's head swivel towards him. "You want to sneak a letter out of here, don't you?"

"Watch." Ciel hisses.

Alois is trembling with excitement yet becomes silent and obedient.

Ciel marks the time by the faintly-lit clock: 8:50 pm. England has the finest post system in the world, Ciel has known that since he was old enough to walk. If the post comes at 8:50 tonight, then it would come at 8:50 every night.

A postman in uniform drives the carriage to the side door just below them and both boys press the tops of their heads to the glass to watch. There is a congenial greeting by one of the caretakers (Ciel takes note of him) and then two bags are exchanged. The one handed over from the home has the outline of a circle on the side of it.

"Mark those bags in your memory," Ciel whispers. The transaction takes scant seconds, a moment at most from the time the carriage stops until it is on its way again.

When it finally disappears, Alois turns to the side and attacks Ciel. He presses the smaller boy against the wall and candy breath comes in little pants near his own lips. "Ciel, you're making some kind of plan, aren't you? Aren't you!"

"You are...too close," Ciel complains but Alois disregards his need for personal space entirely.

"What are we doing? Maybe we'll smuggle you out in the bag? You'd fit, I'd say. That would be brilliant!"

"Ridiculous." Ciel intercepts Alois's hands that try to snake around his waist and slides away from him and the wall at the same time.

"Come on, Ciel. You can't leave me like this." Alois words are practically a moan. "You can't just be bloody brilliant and form secret post plans and not let me have a little kiss. I'm so hard right now making spy plans with you. Come on, please. Pleaaaase! We have this whole room to ourselves..." Alois makes another move but Ciel resolutely snuffs the candle stub making it much harder for Alois to find him let alone pounce upon him. The boy with the charcoal hair uses the precious seconds of almost complete silence and darkness to smugly make it to the relative safety of the hallway.

He believes he's alluded his shadow and exited first until Alois suddenly presses against him from the front, lips on his ear. "I'm going to have you make this up to me, Ciel. Consider yourself forewarned." Alois's voice is a purr of promise and then he laughs loud enough for his companion's heart to race in the dim and dark and silence of the hallway.

Ciel makes a mental note as he catches his breath: Alois Trancy is bloody good at this.

* * *

 

" _Checkmate_."

"What? No it's not! It absolutely is not checkmate. I mean I know you've only got one eye so it might be hard to  _see_  the board clearly and everything..."

" _Now_  you are losing poorly."

"But I am  _telling_  you, it's not over. It's  _check_ , Ciel. I'm only in  _check_. I can make one move to get my king out of  _check_ and if I can, the game goes on, right?  _Right_?"

Ciel surveys the board. From his vantage there is not a single move Alois could make that will...

"Do you see it  _now_?"

Ciel does not move his head but his gaze travels up to Alois's flushed face, red with frustration, excitement or any number of extreme emotions. Something has placed the bit firmly in this boy's mouth tonight and there has been nothing aimless or casual about his moves. Ciel had placed trap after trap in his path and he had not fallen for one. Not yet. Alois lost the last two games not to childish errors, but to an inability to predict Ciel's own offensive drive when the black king had finally gotten bored of baiting and getting no bites for his trouble.

Alois was, in fact, learning.

"What I see is a  _checkmate_ if you cannot make a move."

Alois reaches onto the board. He slides his king one square and places his right corner rook in a blocking position to the white king's left.

Ciel blinks.

_He just "castled" and saved himself from my rook._

"Fuck you, Ciel. You didn't think I was going to do it, did you?"

"No, seeing as how you had yet to do it correctly once, even in practice."

"I'm fucking  _full_  of surprises. Was that whole post-watching adventure earlier part of the plan, maybe? Are you getting ready for it because you know it's only a matter of time until I have your little black king over here?" Alois leans back and pats his crotch with a knowing smile.

Ciel makes a face at the rude gesture and even ruder insinuation: That he could lose to this undisciplined,  _unschooled_ brat. Really now.

"There is only one problem." Ciel begins blandly.

"Oh? What's that?"

"You cannot  _castle_  out of check."

"What? When was that a rule? That's not a rule! Now you’re just making things up as you go." Alois stares at the board incredulously and back to Ciel with a mixture of anger and defeat.

"It is a rule. Your instinct was good, but you should have made this move much earlier. To be sporting, I will consider it legal  _for just this game_."

His blond-haired companion blinks and looks up. "What? You will?"

"Why not?"

"Because if I end up winning you  _still_  have to honor the deal..." Alois's face is suspicious but hopeful.

"I said I'd count it as legal. I will honor the deal  _if_  you somehow manage to win."

Suddenly with his mistake behind him, Alois is back to his familiar self. He smiles smugly and sits back. "Then come, Ciel. See if you can beat me."

It is Ciel's turn to grin darkly. He pushes his black queen across the board, smoothly disarming Alois of his last bishop and his only defense from that angle.

Alois's smirk is replaced with an expression of exasperation as he stares at the black queen all silent and superior and practically  _preening_. "You fucking bitch whore," he breathes malevolently.

" _Checkmate_. Any objections  _now_?" Ciel smiles smugly and sits back.

"Fuck how did I not..."

"You were focused on finding the opportunity to show off, Alois. It would probably be prudent for you to wait until you actually have something to show off. Such displays in the face of a superior opponent only make you look childish."

"Fuck you, Ciel. I'm getting closer." He sweeps a hand down and scoops up the black queen and purses his lips.

 _I told Claude Faustus to his face to fuck off. I told him that this piece, the black queen, is what I am going to become._ And yes, there it is, that dark, quiet realisation pulsing in the back of his mind: Claude Faustus is not just a simple pervert who can be choked to death or stabbed to death or have his throat cut in a moment of distraction. He can't be casually burned up and tossed into a river where no one would miss him. His fucking  _darkness_  practically shelters this entire home and how did Alois not  _feel_ it before? That bastard is evil in ways that stupid men were not evil. He is  _wrong_  in ways that defy Alois's understanding, and  _that_  is saying something.

Earlier that day he had made a big deal about fucking  _castling_  the headmaster, thought he had won, when the game wasn't done. No, not nearly done.

Claude Faustus was a superior opponent with everything that entailed. Ciel was right,  _goddammit_.

_I have to beat him. I have to figure it out and soon, fuck!_

And then Alois cannot sit still any longer. He drops the queen back onto the table and thinks he is smiling brightly at his smaller companion. Ciel is  _well_  now. He looks alert and suspicious though. His eye says  _"what are you up to, Alois?"_  and it takes a second for the boy with the blond hair to realize that it's because he's not swearing or having a fit or trying to kiss him or doing any of the other things he normally does after a game.

Ha!

The chess table suddenly feels huge in this room. It's this big monstrous thing that holds the key to Ciel's salvation or damnation and he doesn't see it. He doesn't recognize how heavy it is because to him it's a useless game to pass the hour. But every time Alois loses it gets bigger and Claude fucking Faustus gets closer and the minutes, the  _seconds_ , they have left disappear into that gigantic gaping blackness that's sucking on his lord's little soul.

_Fuck fuck!_

Suddenly Alois needs to get out of the library. Needs it. Ciel doesn't hear the chess board mock him. He's been living in this darkness so long, been so accustomed to having his veins opened to it, that it's fucking  _commonplace_  now. Hurt and despair and everything is just  _life_  and yes, it is life, yes, Alois knows it is, but he's also known how to stay above it. Ciel was sick and got better, and Alois succeeded in pissing the headmaster off, but it  _doesn't matter_  if they can't get  _out_  of here. It's all just more fucking  _castling_ , all right?

_Fuck! Fuck Fuck!_

Alois hops down from his seat and he knows that he must look extraordinary right now because Ciel's face is scowling at him, but his eye says  _something is wrong_  and maybe it's amazing that Ciel can look into his soul. But he can't win at the Alois game so easily, no, and they have to get out of this room where this chess board is telling Alois that he can never win and that Ciel is going to eventually walk back to the headmaster and never ever come back as Ciel again.

"Let's go on another mission," Alois grabs his hand. Plays it off. He's fine, right? He's fine.

"What are you talking about."

"Come on, I've got the perfect mission. You can't say that you didn't love it, sneaking around and knowing things and doing things you aren't allowed to do. You fucking loved it. I loved it. Let's do some more."

"I am not..."

But Alois has to get them both out of the library now. That chess table is already too big to fit inside it. Pretty soon it will smother them both. He grabs Ciel's hand and pulls him from the chair and won't let him go because he's going to take him somewhere, and it will  _feel_  like they are escaping and that might be enough to calm Alois down for now.

Once they get into the hallway, Ciel must become compliant and quiet out of necessity so that they aren't discovered. The irony of it is funny to Alois and he laughs. He's so fucking  _obedient_  at the wrong damn times. He ignores Ciel's whispered demands for an explanation because he is the one leading this mission and he has to concentrate, avoid the squeaky boards, count the doors, find the stairway down.

Eventually Ciel no longer has to be pulled which is good. Maybe he feels it for real, the chest- tingling, shoulder-shaking thrill of being an unruly little bastard. When they push the door open to the kitchen in almost complete darkness, Ciel does not hide his dismay.

"What are we doing here?" He demands airily. Alois can't really see his features but he knows the tone.

"I'm not afraid of the dark." Alois declares. He doesn't have to do it but he likes to say it out loud because then it's more real. He can believe words that come from his mouth.

"We are in the kitchen," Ciel's voice fades and Alois knows he is looking around, trying to suss out recognizable features of a room in which he has never set foot while brightly lit. A few coals in the fireplace continue to give off a little heat and light and Ciel instinctively moves towards it. "What are we doing here, Alois?"

"We're getting a little snack, of course." This is Alois's arena. This is Alois's chessboard and he knows how this works. He's a fucking master of thievery and sneakiness and he's going to be the superior opponent and show off something he can show off. "I've run out of candy."

"What?"

Ciel's heart is pounding so loudly in his ears that Alois's gigglingly-soft words are actually difficult to make out. The fire is nothing but a useless collection of orange jelly beans though Ciel finds he does not miss the heat. The lack of light, however, is distressing to a boy who is already half in darkness. What is he doing here? What if they are caught here? It is unlikely due to the hour but...

And then the muffled sounds of cloth and flesh moving bring his attention back to the blond-haired boy who is, he thinks, climbing on top of a counter.

"She hides it here. A stash. The cook loves sweets, you know. That's why all of her teeth are black and rotting and her breath smells like burned sugar with pipe tobacco." He is perched in front of a cupboard and there is a sound of cabinets creaking open. "I can't take the whole bag. Learned my lesson there. She moved her stash and it took me a bloody week to figure out where."

Ciel shakes his head. This is ridiculous, but every sense is open, aware. He is breathing hard and it scrapes the back of his throat. Is this what it feels like to be alive? It is not unpleasant.

"Hurry."

"Hell no. I want you to bask in my glory."

"Alois."

"Am I impressing you yet?"

Ciel finally hears Alois drop down nimbly from the counter. He feels better, safer, slightly relieved when Alois's presence is near again and laughing, completely free of worry.

"Open your mouth."

"No. If you are finished, then we are leaving."

"This is my  _checkmate_ , Ciel. Eat my fucking candy and just let me  _have this_ , okay?"

The boy with the charcoal hair purses his lips. There is a tone here, a new one. It is insistent and raw. Desperate, not joking.

"Fine." He opens his mouth.

Alois puts his hand on Ciel's cheek gently and Ciel realizes this is because his persistent companion cannot see whether he is obeying or not.

"Hungry birdy." Alois's voice contains an audible smirk. The blood rushes to Ciel's face and he closes his mouth out of spite, but not before Alois manages to put something sweet in it.

Sweet and sugary. It has the taste of vanilla and it melts a bit and Ciel, who secretly loves sweets, savors it. Enjoys it. Everything about it. The richness of the flavour is compounded by the danger, and his senses are at their breaking point without his eyesight.

"It's good, right? You deserve it, you know. You deserve all the sweetness, Ciel..."

The lips on his cheek happen softly, like the fingers earlier.

Ciel cannot speak.

Alois suddenly stands up straight. That is the first cue. And then Ciel hears it--muted feet shuffling. His head swivels to the crack of the door and with their dark vision it is easy to see the glow of candlelight approaching.

Ciel goes stiff. To be caught here. To be caught here...everything would be over. There was no way...

Alois disappears.

Ciel considers this moment. If that figure enters the kitchen, what will they do? If Alois is found out, they may lock him up, send him away, or...or worse. There have been worse things done here. He cannot allow that to happen.

"Ciel." A whisper.

Of course there is only one option. He must allow himself to be caught, and then when he is being escorted from the room for disciplinary action, Alois can sneak away. Ciel is already formulating the script that will help him mitigate the punishment or allay it entirely. He can talk his way out of this as long as Alois remains unfound.  _Safe_.

"Ciel!" The whispered yell gets his attention. He turns towards it.

"Quick. Here, hurry. We can hide."

"We cannot..."

" _Shut up, Ciel_! Bolt holes, remember?"

Ciel licks his lips. If he trusts Alois then he must forego his own plan, and that is hard. To give what little control he has to another is almost unconscionable...but the feet and the light are coming and his pride tells him that he does  _not_  want to be caught either,  _bloody hell!_

The boy with the charcoal hair skitters towards Alois's voice. He feels with his hands and finds the opening. It is an empty cupboard by the shape and position, and then Alois's hands are on his and he is pulling him into it where it is close and cramped with his own hot body. Alois is on his hands and knees and he practically drags the other boy in feet and legs first so that they are sandwiched, Ciel the bottom slice and Alois the top. The second Ciel gets his arms inside Alois closes the cupboard, leaving it open just a crack. Two blue eyes, one above the other, watch the kitchen door open as the huge shape of the cook's burly adult son, John, enters smacking his lips sleepily and scratching at his behind.

Ciel holds his breath. The full candlelight is like a beacon in his brain. It must surely show evidence of their presence and expose them. He can hear both their heartbeats in this close space and it drowns out all noise.

John opens a cupboard and rummages. He removes something, puts it into his mouth. The bloody bastard takes his time with his midnight snack. Ciel and Alois do not move. They make no sound. The smaller boy does not mind the compression of Alois's body over his. He does not mind the closeness of their quarters because stillness and silence and darkness is safe. Nothing matters but to mentally and physically become one with this cupboard and to arouse no attention...

After what feels like an eternity, John puts things away, his lips smacking noisily. He takes a deep breath and then burps loud and long. Ciel freezes, fearing some giggling noise from his companion that might give them away, but Alois is silent and unmoving and the moment passes. Even when the light is gone and John is clearly well on his way to his bed, the two boys remain frozen.

Ciel is first aware of the heat. He is almost never hot. Ever. The trickle of perspiration that slides down his back feels like a fingernail and he shivers in spite of it.

"You're safe," Alois whispers.

"That was too close."

"What? No. That wasn't close. It's been much  _much_  closer," Alois is still whispering but the laughter that trickles with it is real. "What in the hell were you doing just  _standing_  there?"

Ciel bristles. He tries to move but he is essentially pinned. This cupboard was not designed to hide one boy let alone two.

"Nevermind that. Let me out."

"What were you going to do, Ciel? Give yourself up?" The amusement in his voice disappears utterly.

"There seemed few other options."

"Don't. Don't ever give yourself up. Never, okay? Fuck. Never give yourself up. I can't have you doing that ever ever. Please."

Ciel feels a stab through his heart as Alois levers down into him, wraps an arm around his back and presses a forehead into his shoulder.

"You're heavy."

Alois's voice is muffled by Ciel's neck. His lips make featherlight brushes against his skin as he mumbles, "Don't care. Shut up. I put you here, so it's safe, okay? I put you here. You let me do it, Ciel. You let me keep you safe and I will always do it, I swear it. Please don't just ever give yourself up. Not again. That's not a fucking plan, Ciel..."

The boy with the charcoal hair lifts a hand up. He can't see anything but he still  _feels_  and Alois's hair is incredibly soft. He imagines its golden light. Lying here with everything crushing against them, he can do nothing but absorb the sadness from this shaking frame. He cannot move to wipe away the hot, wet tears on his neck that tingle and slide and do not feel like fingernails down his back.

It's the kiss on his neck that probably does him in. It is not Alois's usual brand of annoying pawing and amused pucker faces. Ciel only knows it is a kiss because Alois's lips are closed and his voice is silent and he wrings a shudder from Ciel's spine so easily. When the smaller boy gives an inch and slides his hand to the back of Alois's head in some instinctive motherlike gesture of comfort, he knows he has done them both in. Alois is crying fiercely, helpless, asking for nothing. He cannot articulate his sorrow, but Ciel is not a fool-he knows. Love is hot and wet and a sob. It is not a balm and a comfort for Alois--it sentences happiness to death.

Somewhere someone moving the pieces has just declared  _checkmate._  Ciel has lost and he is lost. He is a terrible boy to want this thing called love that can squeeze the light out of his sunrise...

There is so little space here that it is difficult to tell where Alois begins and where Ciel ends. Nevertheless Ciel finds both hands and lifts Alois's face. What this boy wants is a poison, but Ciel has never been known for his kindness. When he brings their lips together he proves how vile he is, but he cannot stop. He cannot stop because the candy Alois gave him earlier was not enough. It would never be enough. He had developed a taste for the flavour of this mouth and it is all he wants. He must have as much of it as he can before it is taken away from him forever.

It is only a matter of time...

(to be continued...)


	11. Writing on the Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a kiss...  
> Ciel has given up on himself, but needs to make a plan to save Alois.  
> The problem is, it may already be too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello.
> 
> Some of you are in disbelief that there is a chapter 11. Some of you just started reading this fic today or yesterday. For those who have been waiting, thank you. Your comments and private messages did not go unread. I'm not going to act like it hasn't been two years since a proper update-I know I've been tardy, and I beg your forgiveness. I just want to thank the readers, because apparently there's still a Cielois fandom out there to write for. Much thanks to Kate for bugging me about this fic and to Sachelerot who helped me get my Cielois legs under me to finish this chapter.
> 
> And a special thanks to whoever it was on ff.net who begged me to start this chapter with the kiss from Alois' Point of View. I took your suggestion. :)
> 
> And without further ado, the rising action of our story begins to really move...

* * *

"Thus it will always happen that he who is not your friend will demand your neutrality, whilst he who is your friend will entreat you to declare yourself with arms. And irresolute princes, to avoid present dangers, generally follow the neutral path, and are generally ruined. "

-Niccolo Machiavelli _The Prince_

* * *

**Ch 11: Writing on the Wall**

Alois doesn't understand many things.

For example, he doesn't understand why adults decide to listen to some old hag who lives in a house a hundred times nicer than most people just because she has a title like "queen." He doesn't understand the English language when it's scraped with black ink into paper or chiseled into marble. He can't comprehend world-changing events, see the auspiciousness of Bonfire Night (his own birthday), but neither does he care.

There is one thing Alois wants to understand, however, and he hates it and loves it and can't breathe without it.

Ciel.

Damn him. Damn this bastard for always doing the exact opposite things he was supposed to, for wanting to give himself up to the bloody cook's moron of a son to do what? Help Alois escape the kitchen? It was both heartbreaking and insulting that he thought Alois couldn't evade the clumsy behemoth enough for them both. Hadn't he just demonstrated his skills? Hadn't he almost fucking _won_ that chess match?

And then, when Alois was sinking into despair, Ciel did the most impossible thing ever. The craziest most reckless thing.

He started a kiss.

Oh, yes he did, and Alois would never ever let him forget it. Just let him try to say no, dammit, just try to get out of this because those were Ciel's hands on his face and those were Ciel's softest lips sucking his breath and tears and hurt away.

Alois dives into it. He leans in, he closes his eyes, he holds on tight. So damn tight! And a tiny voice in his head is telling him he has won! But that voice is his own voice and he can't trust it.

Something is wrong.

Something is _always_ wrong. But the part of him that had mapped out every perfect crease at the corner of Ciel's scowl and pawed relentlessly at every unamused word for hidden meaning was waving warning flags.

Because Ciel didn't start kisses. This wasn't how he lost. This was how he _managed Alois._

 _Who gives a rat's ass? This is mine. It's_ mine _and I_ deserve _it._

And, honestly, for two seconds he is okay with it all because Ciel isn't pulling away, and his mouth is so so so rich. He'd pissed Alois off _again_ , but the desperate boy wanted this closeness because Ciel's arm is a mile long and when he pushes Alois away, it is to another continent.

But what if...

Alois can feel his tears still on his cheeks. They are brands of his love. Ciel knew how he felt and he had walked back to the headmaster, had planned to stand here while...

Alois breaks the kiss. It's completely dark and he can't see it! He can't Ciel's eye, and without that he has really no idea. No fucking idea if...

_If he tells me he loves me right now, he'll mean it._

The idea kicks him in the balls, makes him think he'll throw up.

 _If he tells me he loves me right now, it will mean he's giving up his own fight. Holy fuck._ Because Ciel would do it. He'd say those pride-effacing words to distract Alois from his plans, maybe to pity him, or worse, because there was no longer any reason to hold out, but never because it was the right moment to be honest.

Alois moans and presses his forehead into Ciel's shoulder. It's tense too. But is Ciel tense because it's dark and they were almost caught, or is he tense because this is the last time...

"Alois?"

It's Ciel's voice. It's soft. He doesn't maybe understand why Alois stopped doing the thing he loves most in the whole goddamn universe. The blond-haired boy wants to laugh and laugh at the goddamn irony.

"Ciel, tell me you love me."

He chokes out the words.

He doesn't know how he can live past this moment if Ciel says them. It's all Alois wants, but if Ciel says them...then he'll be gone. Tomorrow, the next day...it would be proof he was already fucking planning it.

There's an indrawn breath. It's thin and small but it's so hot here in the cupboard, their bodies pressed together in ways that would make the queen blush and huff. Ciel is as still as a statue but a million times warmer and burning Alois through his clothes like the setting sun.

Ciel can't see him either, can't read him, can't escape him, can't lie that he had just turned Alois into something melted, gooey and sweet, like chocolate on a summer's day.

" _Tell me_ ," Alois demands, and he thinks maybe he sounds kind of hysterical, but he can't stop and he's shaking because he both wants it and wants to run away from it.

_Not now...It can't be now. But please now? I'd die to hear those words!_

Alois had already known Ciel had broken him. Now he knows just how much.

"No."

Alois stops breathing.

Nothing. No movement, but he heard it.

Relief and despair vie for dominance. Alois can't handle it so he does the only thing he can think of. He takes a deep breath.

"Why fucking not?"

And he thinks it almost sounds like him.

And then Ciel pushes on his chest slightly and Alois moves on instinct, just a little room, as he tries to not laugh and wail at the same time.

"I do not have to justify anything to you."

It's Ciel's voice. The real Ciel. The Ciel who might suffer Alois' advances but would never kiss him first. The Ciel who hadn't completely become a thing for someone else, even if that someone was Alois.

When he lets the laugh out, it's lighter than he thought and he feels better. Yeah, he's okay. He wanted those fucking words, but not if it was Ciel's suicide letter.

"Have you completely taken leave of your senses?"

Now Ciel just sounds bored. It's pitch black, Alois' thighs are straddling Ciel's, their bodies can only move a few inches apart, and Ciel had just nearly kissed what sense Alois had right out of his brain, and he had the temerity to sound _bored?_

Alois fucking loves it.

"Completely. Wait, let me check." He lifts an arm precariously and reaches it down in between his own legs.

"Hang on, it seems I haven't _completely_ lost my senses. How about you give us another kiss?" And he finds he's giggling despite the molten tears still streaking his cheeks.

There's a rough scrape as Ciel slides the cupboard open fully, bathing them both in the relatively cooler air of the kitchen.

"You are an idiot," he retorts and begins to pull himself free of the confines.

Alios doesn't stop him. He's so grateful that Ciel snubbed him that he thinks he shall go and find a new place to break into tomorrow, steal another key maybe. He's entitled to compensation for feeling so good about being so ready to double over and weep until his cheeks are bruised and his heart is numb...

Ciel is gone from him just like that. One moment he had been here giving a scalding kiss and the next...

"Come, we must get back to the library and put the chessboard away."

Alois wants to come. He wants to come so badly.

He punches the inside of the cupboard.

It's loud and it hurts his knuckles and it makes the little lord gasp.

Alois doesn't feel even, level-Ciel still holds everything Alois ever wanted in his tight little fist, but he can breathe again. He can walk again. He can act like a normal human being for a little longer.

"Alois?"

Ciel's heart stops. He cannot see Alois, but he knows that sound.

But then Alois is taking his hand in the darkness and Ciel squeezes himself around it tightly in spite of himself. Alois would never know how close... _how close_ he had come to giving in, to saying _it._ Ciel had already accounted himself as low, cruel, and unredeemable for adding onto his sins this sin of avarice. Because he was greedy, so greedy, for Alois' presence. Whatever miracle had caused the sun-haired youth to love him had become his curse, and Ciel would never contemplate a cure for it if it meant Alois would truly see the futility of that love. If he would dare to dream of leaving his side...

Alois' taste lingers on Ciel's tongue long, long after the chess board is put away and they manage to make it back to bed without further incident. In the darkness, no one can see him lick his lip and then bite down on it, squeezing an eye closed. The pain is his penitence for the evil he does, but it could not, would not, keep him from continuing to sin. He was damned already, and though he would not dream of taking Alois to hell with him, he'd force him to the edge to see him off...

If only he fully understood at that moment how the world would begin to turn with the breaking of the day...

* * *

**The next morning**

In the morning, Ciel is assaulted repeatedly...

With mittens.

Alois has a pair on his ears and he is prancing around calling himself The Great King of the North or somesuch. It is his way of announcing to Ciel that the promised winter clothes have been delivered.

"You look ridiculous."

Ciel buttons his top button, smooths his fingers down his front and ducks when he sees a mitten sail at his head in the reflection from the dormitory window.

"Dammit! Stand still."

Ciel turns around, scowl in place, ready to rebuke, as the mitten's mate bounces off his nose.

"Bullseye!"

And then Alois puts a hand over his mouth in the most insincere expression of sincere contrition Ciel had ever seen.

"Where are your trousers?" Ciel blandly inquires, noting that Alois is still in his summer shorts.

"Where are yours?" Alois tilts his head, a too-merry twinkle in his eye.

In spite of himself, Ciel feels his cheeks redden.

"You know bloody well they need to be taken up." And he hides his embarrassment at his smaller stature by straightening noticeably, chin up, to walk past his mercurial complement.

Alois has the good decency to not giggle madly at his back, he thinks, but then a long length of knitted gray sails over his shoulder. Before he can even remove it from his person, Alois is impossibly there, twining the scarf around both their necks. He leans forward, touching Ciel's forehead to his with the gentleness of a summer sunrise but twice as warm.

It is quiet. No one is around. Alois' stillness is troubling. Ciel casts his mind back to the heavy sound of Alois breaking in the kitchen the night before, the hot sobs...

Ciel had gone too far. He does not know what came over him, why Alois' sorrow should have moved him so completely, but whatever it was could not happen again. Alois plays the fool expertly, but he is anything but, and Ciel would do well to remember it.

He had been so close, too close to saying those words...

"You are too warm," Ciel says, breaking the moment.

"And you're too cold."

But it is too serious. Ciel reaches up and pulls the scarf off of the back of his neck. He takes a step to critically examine the boy before him.

"Ciel..."

Alois is still half bowed, his blond hair obscuring the light of his blue eyes. Ciel grips the scarf. Something is wrong, and he would have to account himself stupid if he did not admit, inwardly, that he knows exactly what it is.

Ciel had given Alois some kind of false hope, but nothing has changed. Alois does not know how far he is being used for that effervescent warmth, the closeness, the intimacy of willingly-shared sorrow. He does not know that Ciel is planning to keep him close right up until the moment he breaks into pieces and disappears like snow atop a sunny hill. He does not know, but he senses...something.

"Let's run away."

The boy with the charcoal hair balks.

"What?"

"I said, let's just fucking _go._ " When Alois looks up, Ciel can see the the gleam of an Alois plan hatching, of the gears and mechnications that none could fathom beginning to turn. _This_ is Alois' answer to the problem. He grabs Ciel's hands in both of his and he begins to whisper quickly. "There's a road. We saw it from the classroom the other night. We could follow it. We could wander through the woods if you want. We could find a cave and live off fucking berries and bark and in the springtime plant some shit. I don't know. But we could leave. We could get out of here right fucking _now._ " And the more Alois speaks, the faster his words become until it is all Ciel can do to keep up with the insane ramblings to the end.

But Ciel knows he is cold. He knows.

His hands find Alois' chest. When he pushes, it is as much to create distance as it is to keep any word of that nonsensical "plan" from finding purchase in his heart or his mind-he cannot leave. Not like that. Running away...

"What, exactly, do you think such an action would gain us?" he begins, and he knows his tone is hard, but Alois has just unwittingly insulted him to his core just when he thought he had no pride left to bruise. "It is ludicrous to consider that course of action unless one has no further aspirations in life than to be a fugitive at best or frozen to death at the worst."

He is a liar of the worst magnitude. Ciel's own ambitions have dwindled to nothing, but Alois speaks of leaving, and that has set the clock ticking in Ciel's small breast beating double time. He can see Alois trying to fight ahead, to persist, but this cannot and will not be. He drops his voice. "Do you think I have suffered humiliation to end up with nothing? Do you think I would so easily abandon everything here for the chance to live as a prince among pine trees?"

Ciel no longer knows what he is trying to do here. Half of him is already lifeless and promises to be dragged wherever Alois wishes to dispose of his corpse. The other half simply cannot bear the idea of meeting his final end with his back to his foe. Frustratingly, it turns out Ciel has a shred of dignity left after all.

Alois' face falls, he shakes his head, and the curls, tethered helplessly to his head, sway in time to his denial.

"What the hell do you think is going to happen at the end of this, Ciel? What? You think that fucking piece of shit is going to leave anything of you behind? For the pine trees? For _me_?"

_No, he will not._

But Ciel's finger digs into Alois' chest. He is a couple of inches shorter than the other boy but he has the advantage of the rage in his chest that has been seeking an outlet for years. He channels that through their connection as he jabs.

"For _you._ That is what this comes down to. _Your_ anger, _your_ jealousy, _your inability to comprehend._ Enough."

Their eyes lock. Alois' whole body is tense, and for half a second, Ciel feels that the boy is on the verge of some rash action. What would he do? Could he be so mad as to grab Ciel now and attempt to drag him into the woods or some other move that proved his possessiveness? Would Ciel try to stop him? Sin upon sin upon sin. Why was he fighting Alois so insistently when the headmaster had far worse planned for him than an ignominious death amongst the pines? He could not make it one day in the wet and cold before he nearly succumbed, but would it be so bad to die in Alois' arms?

It would not be bad. In fact, it would be entrancing. It would be blissful and beautiful and likely showered with Alois' frank tears. With his golden hair backlit by watery sunlight, gentle fingers on his face, he could give himself up to the elements of nature in a way that was kinder than any moment of his life since the day Claude Faustus had first pulled his arms behind his back and tied his wings with iron...

It was altogether too good an end for him. Alois, with his memories of a beloved brother breathing his last, might not recover from it and end up throwing himself to the dogs, figurative or literal. There had to be an end to Ciel's evil. He could not repay Alois' love with such an end. He could not explain it now, but he did not need to explain himself to anyone.

Alois' face suddenly goes slack. Blank.

It is not what Ciel expects.

"You go ahead and think what you want, say what you want. I'm not going to deny that you're mine, Ciel. I love you and that's far fucking more than any other person in this fucking place has in claim over you. But fine."

Ciel will concede that point, but in silence only. When he backs away, Ciel has difficulty maintaining the heat of an anger that is more fear than pride, more compassion than dignity. More than Alois would ever know if Ciel has his way.

Alois continues, and now Ciel can see in both his visage and his tone of voice how this boy could be a killer twice over.

"If it means that fucking much to you, then fine. But I'm just going to say this once: if you aren't here after class, I'm going to find Faustus and fucking kill him, even if that means doing it in broad fucking daylight in the courtyard in front of every fucking pissant in this place. No more 'orders,' Ciel. No more delaying. If you won't put a stop to it, I will."

Ciel feels his adam's apple move. Until this moment, he was not truly afraid of anything in this world but his everlasting shame. But Alois is not bluffing. He has made his own pride pact with himself and announced it for Ciel's benefit. When Alois turns to leave, Ciel sees in his retreating stride a boy who has only one thing left to live for and a willingness to destroy himself to save it.

Was it impossible after all? Was it a foolish notion that Ciel could keep Alois' brightness by his side and go to his own destruction without collateral damage? Even as he planned to keep Alois safe, Alois was planning his own annihilation. They were dangling from the ends of a bar magnet, one pulling south, the other north-forever attracted to each other and never able to fully meet...

As the darkness of the hallway eats the image of the boy he cannot live without, Ciel lifts his hands and stares at his palms.

They are shaking.

What will he do?

* * *

Alois has to get away.

Ciel is not with him, and his feet want to turn, his hands want to find those delicate fingers, twine them forever, and take him away. But right now all he can think of is murder and an argument that has no end. Because Ciel is so goddamn smart and so insufferably stupid at the same time. Alois has stashes of candy all over the building anyway, and right now he wants some. It will not be for long, just enough time to let the rage ebb, to take out his unending frustration on something that cannot bleed. It's up a flight of stairs, down a hallway, in a room no one else is ever in until after lunch. He mounts the steps one at a time, slowly, slamming a foot down with each, feeling the harsh, trembling sensation in his foot vibrate all the way up into his head.

_Goddamn you, Ciel!_

Alois doesn't know what to do with Ciel's coldness. He wants to shatter it. Smear it with warm butter and watch it melt. He wants to kick something, to punch something. He wants to bite down on a jugular, feel the human desperation, taste the blood, feel the bone crack. He imagines every living thing in this fucking shithole is dead and quiet except him and Ciel so he can escort the bloody "prince" without complaint.

The two of them, sitting upon a mound of corpses.

It is almost cheering. Almost. Except Ciel is unreasonable. A few days ago he had no pride, was willing to let Alois defile him to suit his fancy, and now...while Alois rejoices that something of Ciel is still alive and kicking, he employs it to only further his imprisonment. He is _everything in the universe_ to Alois and he should just _accept it_ already-Accept that Alois won't share him, no, not even with Ciel's pride. They all want to put their disgusting hands on that boy and he is completely _fine_ with it.

Alois is very aware that everyone in this place thinks he is crazy. He's not crazy, Ciel is the mad one because _he invites_ destruction and pushes away his greatest weapon...

_Fuck. I want to kill someone..._

"I know it was you."

Alois doesn't even hear the mousy voice over the arguing of his own rage until it tries again, louder.

"I know it was you, Alois Trancy. You set that fire."

Alois stops.

He blinks.

He turns around slowly.

The boy with the wheat-colored hair is alone in the hallway with a smallish boy. He has the purple-greenish tint indicative of healing bruises around both his eyes. They almost obscure his most noticeable features.

Freckleface.

The boy's hands are in tight, nervous fists at his side. They dig into his hips as if urging him on into battle.

Alois stares at him. Just stares. For a second, the smaller boy looks ready to run, but instead, he takes a step forward.

"You did it. I know you did. You...you set that fire and then when you ran into me in the hall, you put those matches into my pocket."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Alois replies with a smile. It's an awful smile. He knows it must look damning-he doesn't care.

"You do," Freckleface pushes. "Do you know...do you know what they did to me? And I had to confess because..."

He bursts into tears. His fingers go to the healing cut at the corner of his lip.

"...because...you did it?" Alois prompts helpfully.

"No!"

The boy shouts it.

"Freckleface," Alois begins, his tone dropping, because, really? "It's not the best time for this. For you. It's a bad time. Take your lumps like a man. Worse shit happens all the time."

The boy takes a deep breath. He tries to stand his ground.

"I'm not...not going to let you-"

But he can't finish his sentence because Alois closes the distance between them in a heartbeat and has him around the throat. With one hand. And Freckleface is so beautifully, wonderfully surprised that he just gasps limply with wide eyes and is silent. It could work. Right now. Alois might feel better, except Freckleface isn't Claude fucking Faustus.

Alois leans in, whispers in Freckleface's ear:

" _I want to kill someone."_

The boy goes very still. That is good. He's getting points for cleverness.

"I want to kill someone so badly that I'm crazy for it, you see?"

His lips brush the shell of the terrified boy's ear. It's soft and warm. It's so delicate.

"So, do us both a favor and piss off before I decide that person has to be you..."

The fingers loosen. Alois backs away with a gentle smile. He's not feeling perfect-he thinks it was better with his hand around that meek throat-but it might suffice for now. It may still his hands from doing worse...

Maybe.

Freckleface has wet himself. There's the undeniable smell of urine coming from a widening puddle on the floor.

 _Ahh. Smells like home, London, home._ Alois thinks. Maybe if Freckleface leaves now, he'll live to a ripe old age.

Or maybe not.

Alois memorizes the image of his patsy: horrified, embarrassed, defeated. It cheers him up a little. Here's someone else who's having a bad fucking morning...

Maybe Alois would go to breakfast after all...

* * *

**Breakfast**

Alois doesn't show up to breakfast until moments before it is over. It was exceedingly unlike Alois to leave Ciel alone during common hours, so his appearance, however tardy, is a relief to the charcoal-haired boy. It isn't because Ciel is worried for lack of his de facto bodyguard, he reminds himself, but because Alois is on a warpath that extends from one end of St. Sebastian's Home for Boys to to the other. Every human in it now is a potential victim. Except Ciel. His figurative end would come from other hands...

Still, the boy with the wheat-colored hair is unusually quiet. Clearly the conversation of the morning is still on his mind.

"Are you still pissed at me?"

It's rapid fire. Alois is so close that Ciel can smell the sweets on his tongue. It is far more inviting than the porridge in his bowl, but he can never say it. He wants that candy breath now. Later. Tonight and tomorrow and ever after.

"No."

"Well, that's good. For the record, I'm still pissed at you."

"I don't know how I shall live," Ciel responds to Alois with complete deadpan because he is going through the motions. He pokes at the grey goop with the edge of a spoon.

"You don't want me to talk about it."

"I do not want to talk about it."

"You want me to just not be pissed."

Ciel pushes his oatmeal around. This conversation is ridiculous and pointless. It is pointless because the thing the boy with one good eye needs is for Alois to care, but if he cares then how could he not be angry? Perhaps it is better this way, an eclipse of his sun. If he distances himself from Alois emotionally, would it be easier for them both in the end? He takes a shuddering breath. It is somehow far easier to just succumb to the destruction of his ego than willingly leave this table without him...

_I am so weak!_

But Alois is suddenly beaming at him, practically glowing in his unbearable lightness as some new idea takes hold in his mercurial brain. His body is vibrating like ripples of heat across a glass window at noon and Ciel is unsure whether this is a good sign or a bad sign. Alois leans over, far beyond propriety for personal space in a public area, and tucks himself against Ciel's neck.

"I've decided that I'm just going to get back at you tonight," Alois' hot breath is a candied whisper that tickles the hairs at the back of Ciel's ear.

"Oh, and what manner of vengeance will satisfy you?" Ciel trembles before pushing the boy away.

"With chess, of course." The wheat colored hair draws away from him. He examines his seatmate with innocent detachment and then his lips spread in a knowing grin. "What else? What were _you_ thinking?"

Ciel makes a "tch" sound of disgust which covers for a swift glance around the refectory.

Everyone appears to be pointedly _not_ watching. Almost everyone. Ciel looks away from Robert's penetrating stare. Something of his old self, beneath the surface, takes control.

"Keep your voice down."

"You're going to lose to me."

Ciel lifts a piece of toast, warming slightly to the change of topic. "You are always quite sure of yourself, and then you bungle it properly."

"I have a good feeling about tonight."

And that is when Ciel notices it.

There is something just the slightest bit worrying. On the surface, Alois seems to be acting perfectly in character, but something about the timbre of his voice is off.

Ciel puts down the bread halfway to his mouth. He turns to regard Alois anew, as if the thing that is wrong will somehow be apparent on his face, in his eyes.

"What have you done?" He asks simply, softly.

Alois takes a deep breath. It expands his whole chest and he tilts his chin up to regard the ceiling with a maddeningly secretive smile. It is as if he is having a private moment with the rafters-a conspiracy that has left the charcoal-haired boy completely on the outside.

"What haven't I done?"

When he drops his head one last time to look Ciel full in the face, all pretext of humour gone.

"What wouldn't I do?"

The rallying of a moment earlier disappears over the edge of a cliff Ciel does not see.

Ciel discards his breakfast. He stands up, looking at the table. Then he drops his palm over the back of Alois' hand, grasps it so there can be no misunderstanding, and pulls him up.

"Whoa, hey..."

But Ciel is not hearing any of it or waiting for jokes. He does not care about the stares either, nor does he know in what state his ego is in. But Alois, at least, is letting him drag him to the lav where the smaller boy drops Alois' hand and turns to face him.

"Ciel, when you said you didn't want to talk..."

"What have you done?" Ciel repeats. "And do not be cryptic."

Alois blinks and then his eyes, once amused, go flat.

"Nothing that will matter to you. You pissed me off. I was on a rampage. I stopped. I didn't break any precious rules. Yet."

Ciel scrutinizes that face, but all he can find is annoyance. He _might_ be telling the truth.

"Alois..."

The boy with the wheat colored hair raises his hands to his face, wipes it down in some manic gesture of indecision, and then grabs Ciel's arms just beneath his shoulders.

"I'm about two seconds from doing something that changes your universe, Ciel, so whatever you're going to say, don't."

The boy with the charcoal hair closes his mouth. The grip is hard, almost bruising, but it is as if Alois is fighting with himself from doing more, that he must keep both hands on Ciel or he will run off to insure his self-destruction.

"I'm not going to let you do this to me, piss me off to distance me. That's what you want. You think you'll win if I say I'm going to leave you alone because you made me so fucking _pissed_. But I took care of that already. I'm pissed, but I'm not setting any fires or _killing_ anyone (yet). And everything else is going to come true tonight when I beat you at chess. So don't lecture me, or whatever the fuck it is you think you're going to do. I'm here. No one is dead. No one knows _anything_ and I told you, it stays like that as long as you are here after classes. So that's all you need to do, Ciel. Just _be here_ if it means that fucking much to you."

The irony of it all is almost too much. Perhaps Alois would be happy if he knew just how little Ciel wanted to distance himself from Alois. Does it mitigate any of his sins if Alois could see how much the boy with the one good eye was using him to bouy him right up until the moment when he surrendered his own broken ship to the headmaster?

Alois' grip on his upper arms is painful. It will leave a mark, but it is far less than he deserves.

Something in his expression, however, must have tipped Alois off, because the fingers release and he suddenly finds himself in an embrace. It is unexpected and Ciel is stiff as the words rush out.

"I'm sorry. You make me crazy, Ciel. My brain wants to kiss you and punch you at the same time. I want to yell in your face, I want to pick you up and carry you out of here, I want to burn and smash windows and strangle other boys. I want to stab things and cuddle kittens and make cute noises at their little pink tongues..."

Ciel swallows.

"You kissed me last night, Ciel. _You_ kissed _me._ And I know why. I wish you loved me enough to let me help you..."

The boy with the blue eye flushes at the warm memory. He feels so self-conscious in this moment. Instinct reaches his hand up to push at the hot body that is burning through his resolve.

"I do not need your kind of help," he hears the words come out of his mouth before he can stop them. They are pre-programmed, it seems, and he is operating on the memory of the boy he used to be.

Instead of getting angry, as Ciel expects, Alois releases him. He takes a step back. He hugs himself around his middle and squats onto the floor as if he has a stomach ache.

"I'm not listening to it anymore. I don't care. I _know_ , Ciel. And I'm trying, but I can't for much longer and that's why you _have_ to lose tonight. And I know you're not going to just blow the chess match off, because you don't _lose_ to peasants like me, just the fucking headmaster."

Ciel's chest hurts him. He is developing a headache that began in his heart. He is angry, but the words ring as true. He is in love, _loves so much_ but he cannot, _will not_ admit it. He wants to have the joy of one week of his life for the rest of it, and yet he cannot run away. He is a collection of indecision that has tied his hands more surely than any sinful act of his tormentor's.

"You can't figure it out, I can see it all in that one fucking eye you have left, so I'm going to figure it out for you."

Alois stands up, but he's shaking with a resolve that borders on tears.

"You are a fucking bastard son of a bitch, Ciel, but you are the only thing I love. If you destroy yourself, you destroy me, and it won't be my body, it will be whatever is left of my fucking _soul_."

Ciel blanches as the weight of it begins to worm itself in.

"We're both selfish. The difference now is just who is _better_ at it. And, I assure you, I am. I'm so much fucking better. _Be here_ after class, Ciel."

And before Ciel can even summon the strength for a reply to this, Alois turns and runs out of the lavatory.

The walls are crashing down, he realizes. They have been for some time, but he had trained himself to be mute to the sounds, to ignore the chunks of stone slamming to the ground around him. But sooner or later there will be no shelter. Soon the sky will see him for who he is, and at that point, he will be completely exposed to the elements and his lies will find him to destroy him.

* * *

Class now is meaningless. He has given up learning what he needs to conquer the outside world. The book, _The Prince_ , is in the dormitory where Ciel left it this morning. It has become a symbol of his shackles and his surrender, and this very morning he decided he can no longer look at it. He is not _The Prince_ , and he never was. Claude Faustus had used it and his lessons to prove his _own_ skill.

And so, as the time ticks on, Ciel counts them down. He subtracts them from the total of his life, and he waits for the end to come...

After his third class, Ciel gathers his things and heads into the hallway. It is one more period until lunch break and Ciel does not know in what state he will find Alois. If it is anything like his own, however, something is going to break...

"Are you in a hurry this morning, Ciel?"

It is a frozen dagger of ice that spears him through the heart while simultaneously searing his feet to the floor. That voice...

Ciel doesn't want to turn his head, but as his legs have gone leaden and his heart is stopping, there seems little point in trying to deny the fact that Claude Faustus is behind him. And now that Ciel has heard the words, he senses the presence. Like a spider that waits in silence in the middle of the web, he has been standing inside a vacant school room for this one single moment.

Of all the times, of all of the places.

Ciel turns on his heel. Slowly. To his credit, when he finally sees him there, leaning against the door jam, arms crossed, still in his heavy traveling cloak, Ciel's face is composed. His heart is threatening to leap from his chest and his legs beg him to run, but this morning he insulted Alois for suggesting he turn his back, and at the very least, he is not going to be a hypocrite in this.

"I am always in a hurry. Time is precious, headmaster. I'm surprised you would think to interrupt me in the course of my daily studies..."

In many respects, he sounds like the Ciel he has always been. But the boy with one good eye knows that his mind and soul are reeling, recoiling into whatever shattered defenses they have left and that it is only a memory of his pride that defends the crumbling castle now. And a memory has no substance at all.

_Why is he here? Now? He has never...ever...come for me before classes conclude..._

And why would he have presumed anything about this man? He's a demon, and darkness has no timetable. Ciel is doomed. His time is up. He didn't know how it would end, but for it to end today...

_Alois will never forgive me, and I will lose him, body and soul.._

When Claude Faustus smiles, a lean, knowing grin, the memory of Ciel's pride abandons everything.

"I wanted to see what a boy looks like without his shadow..." And he moves into the hallway. Slowly. One sinewy arachnid leg after the other.

This monster has touched his center. The place where the boy's right eye used to be is so consciously empty now. He has no more secrets worth finding, not to this beast, except Alois. And, like the brightness of a carnival sparkler in the dark, Ciel suddenly realizes that he would die first rather than give him up.

"Shadows only exist in the presence of light. I would wager your darkness has secured the absence of my shadow for years. But if a light show is all you want..."

The brazen words fall from his lips like drops of molten metal, but Ciel cannot collect them to form them, to cool or harden them into any semblance of a weapon.

"You know what I want."

And just like that, the boy with the charcoal hair understands that the nature of their relationship has finally run its course. Ciel already knows he cannot escape and the headmaster knows that victory is within reach. There is no game, only predation, and he is the fly that will be wrapped in silk across the headmaster's desk and sucked slowly and painfully until there is nothing left.

"You cannot have it."

Spite. That is what is left. Just that, but he straightens his back and squeezes his eye shut as the headmaster moves to within inches of him. Ciel can hear the shift of his fabric, he can smell the man's greed, his poison. He can stuff what this man wants out of sight. It will not work forever, but it might work for now. For this moment. He must see Alois one last time, he must work out one last attempt to keep Alois from destroying himself over things he could never change.

Ciel senses annoyance. His body screams at him to open his eye, to prepare for whatever will come, but he argues with his body softly, reminds it that it has been doing nothing but feeling around in darkness for years.

It is a strange thing to be blind and helpless and calm. Especially when there is a gloved hand on his cheek, stroking it gently, as a father might. Ciel cannot stand it. He tries to take a step back, but there is another hand on his arm and a low voice at his ear.

"I already have it..."

And he is right. He is so right, Ciel knows. Both arms go around his books, they tighten there and cling for dear life. He bites his bottom lip so that he does not whimper. There is promise of so much pain in those words. He cannot fight against this man. Faustus has _everything_...

"Look at me, Ciel."

The hand slides to his chin, tightens there, forces his head up so that, if it was open, Ciel knows he would see those disturbing yellow eyes devouring his soul. But spite keeps his only good eye closed, and his body waits to be battered for more insolance than his pride ever delivered, even when it was hale and hearty.

"I would rather die."

And he means it. If Claude Faustus looks into his eye, Ciel is sure every last thing he holds dear will be ripped from him, the roof will cave. It will be plain enough to read. He is already the headmaster's, but Alois cannot ever be. Despite the end Ciel predicts for himself, a soulless, compliant toy in the belly of this beast, Alois must live.

Ciel hears a new sound-a kind of low, friction-filled noise that Ciel presently realizes is the headmaster grinding his teeth. Claude Faustus is... _angry_ with him.

There is no time to revel in this, however. The headmaster's hand on his arm wrenches him like a bundle of spring weeds, pulling him from the wall and then, _no no no NO._

Ciel's cheek is crushed into the wall, his back exposed. Claude Faustus is behind him, again, having his way, again. and every hairpin trigger is set off in the boy's body, mind, and soul.

His jaw is chattering and he is going to be sick. His body has been programmed to receive pain in this position for so long that it goes through the entire emotions of fear, anger, disbelief, hatred and then acceptance in a matter of seconds. In the crisis, Ciel realizes that there is no more adrenaline here. There is no fight. There is nothing but a need to ready himself _to take it_.. _again._

"This time, my lovely Blue Sky, there will be no fire alarms to pull you from me..."

Ciel's brain is whirling. He cannot think. His pride has abandoned him, and the last, futile defenses feel as if they were dismantled long ago. The headmaster is angry, but he has only to take Ciel with him, now, to his study and the end will come. There will be no more witty rejoinders, no more haughty and willful glares. There will be nothing but accord. He will hold his hands out for the ropes. He will get down upon his knees to accept his fate. He could, perhaps, hold out for the sake of spite, but for how long? Not long enough. If he is not here after classes...

The boy with the one good eye seeks inward for the answers, but his mind has stopped its futile grappling for an escape route the moment Faustus saw him for who he truly was. Ciel has been swallowed up by the reality of his eventual submission. No torture the headmaster had devised before could match the violation of that moment or Ciel's understanding of it. There is no going back to the Ciel he was before. Everything from that point was an elaborate act to bide time, and that was all it was.

_Alois. I am sorry. I cannot..._

But if Ciel did not show up at the end of class, then he would never...would never see that bright sun again and Alois would doom himself.

Two months ago, had this happened, Ciel's soul would have given itself away just to be released from the burden of _caring_ anymore about his pride or his body. But everything has changed. If he must surrender, then he absolutely cannot allow that boy to bear the weight of it. He cannot give him up for an asylum or a firing squad.

Ciel needs time. _Time_. He needs at least until tomorrow...

What can he do? _What can he do right now?_ And in the faltering of his own ego, an idea comes to him. What would Alois do? He is not Alois, no, but he knows that boy as he knows himself now. Perhaps better.

"If you do not release me, immediately, I will scream for every professor to hear me." He manages it in a level tone, even though his lips are half pressed to the wall. Even though he is still dying inside. "Surely at least one of them will find this scene...upsetting..."

Stillness.

Reckless headmaster. In his hubris, had he counted on Ciel's own pride to forestall such a tactic when Faustus himself had done such a splendid job of destroying it?

Ciel breathes hard. The seconds beat on like snowflakes falling from the highest heaven-softly, slowly, coldly. Perhaps the headmaster believes he is bluffing?

He hears Alois' voice in his head: _"Scream, Ciel. Or I swear I will impale myself on the spear you laid out for me!"_

Ciel sucks in a deep breath and commits to the action...

"There are no more maneuvers, Ciel."

The whispered words in his ear cause him to gasp out instead what would have been the shriek of deliverance.

"I've already chosen the place and the time for your final undoing. It is not here or now, but it is so very...very soon."

Somehow Faustus' words are more terrifying than any promise the headmaster has ever made to his victim, even without the benefit of his face to frame the expression of what is, undoubtedly, demonic victory.

And then, impossibly, his arm is released and the pressure on his back disappears. Immediately his legs remind him that he has just been dangled over a yawning gate to hell, and he trembles and falls against the benign support of St. Sebastian's Home for Boys. Breath spills in a stuttered staccato from his lips, his chest heavy with the weight of all of his sins and all of his fears.

But there is not another word from the headmaster.

For several tenuous moments, Ciel struggles to hang on to an upright position, eye closed, imagining that the headmaster is still standing, waiting to grin into his vision and terrorize him once more. But when no further words of torment are forthcoming, he hazards the tiniest turn, and then a full gaze, at the empty hall before him.

Like the end of an eclipse, the man is simply gone, replaced by the unreliable light of the hallway.

Unceremoniously, Ciel and his books clatter to the floor. He cannot force himself with an absent antagonist. But absent for how long? An hour? A few hours?

Ciel has no way to check the beast that hid itself in philanthropist's clothes. The boy with the one blue eye is a collection of fragments held in place only through sheer force of will, but that will is dependent upon Alois' continued brightness to ease the nightly pitch of his predicament. If Alois carried through with his own designs, Ciel might be freed of Faustus, but he could never be whole again-the authorities would take Alois away for his troubles to save a valueless child, lock him in an asylum or worse. Much worse

A terrible thought assails Ciel:

 _I am out of time_.

"Ciel?"

A voice behind him. His literature professor.

Ciel gathers the shattered remains of himself hastily and dispassionately. He grabs his books and hauls himself to his feet before he turns around, smile already in place. The older man's face is so concerned that the boy with one good eye believes he may begin laughing hysterically-the irony is too much.

"I tripped over a loose board. I am fine," he says hastily and turns before he can hear one word of pity or compassion.

* * *

His history lesson is interminable. Ciel watches the door and the clock and nothing exists but those two things. He is their prisoner. If the headmaster walks through that portal, then it is truly over. He needs to make a plan for Alois. _He must_. But the weight of it, somehow heavier than the knowledge that some day he will lower his head to the headmaster, makes it that much more difficult to concentrate upon.

The second hand is loud. It is so loud! Ciel exists in forever for the space of 45 minutes, but _he_ does not come. When the professor rings the brass bell, Ciel practically falls over himself in an attempt to escape. As he stays to the wall, avoiding the rush of clumsy boys, he has a revelation.

_I cannot survive another class like this._

And then:

_I must find Alois, and I must do it now._

Ciel is about to turn around when a boy's scream from the stairway landing sends a visceral tremor of panic down Ciel's back. While such a thing happened from time to time in the dormitories late at night, it is not the right sound for the classrooms in broad daylight. Fear and excitement war in Ciel's breast and he immediately turns on his heel towards the commotion along with several other boys.

Muttering in front of him, the press of taller bodies increase the anticipation. One voice is carrying above the others. "Oh my God. Oh God. He was just laying here like this. He was like this when I took the steps!" The reality of a shuddering sob from the speaker goes through Ciel's heart like a fiery spear.

 _Who? What?_ Who?

Ciel does not realize he has reached his hands forward and started to push until a body pushes back.

"Oh my God, look at his neck. Did he fall? Can your head even _do_ that?"

The image of Alois' body at the foot of the stairs, his blond curls bathed in blood, the spill of his life in red spreading like a summer sunset plays out in Ciel's mind before he can stop it.

It could not be Alois. It _could not be_.

"Move!" He hears himself fairly shriek it, his body dying over and over again in anticipation of the sight that he knows must be waiting for him-the end of all happiness. The end of all love, all compassion, all joy in this muted gray world of self-loathing...

A large boy grabs the spectator in front of Ciel and shoves him out of the way.

"He said _move_ , you arses!"

Ciel looks up...

The bully's face is inscrutable and Ciel does not have time to waste understanding his motives except that Robert can see over the other boys. He has no need to push them away unless he is doing it for Ciel...

There is something in Robert's eyes-Something far too knowing, and Ciel's insides twist up like cording and wrap around his throat. It's hard to breathe. _It is so hard to breathe!_ And it cannot be Alois' hand that he can see through the gaps of legs, splayed out and so still. It cannot be his broken body that has already started one of the first onlookers to lean to the side and begin chunking up his breakfast. It cannot be, _it cannot be!_

The close cluster of moving feet and the smell of teenage boys is an unending sea. Even with Robert's assistance, Ciel feels this moment out in slow motion, deliberately suffering to accept the reality that everything has been too late, that all paths to any kind of joy have been sealed up to bang uselessly at the closed gate, that he has destroyed the thing that was most precious to him...

The body, at once, seems too small to be Alois. Ciel finds himself taking a breath. His head has cracked on the last step, his neck broken backwards so that his face is looking somehow _behind_ his shattered body...

It is not Alois Trancy.

In the gasp Ciel takes to start his heart again, he recognizes at once who it is.

Freckleface.

The boy upon whom Alois had laid the entire weight of his arson of the storeroom, the distraction that had brought him out of spider's web at the very moment of his doom. The boy's eyes were open, a last look of shock surrounded by a pool of blood.

Ciel looks down stupidly. He doesn't feel stupid, however. He feels like a callous bastard who witnesses a tragedy and yet smiles. Smiles and almost laughs. Almost. Because this scene is still far too disturbing a scene for a boy to witness, and he is becoming more and more afraid that he is losing his mind.

Because, dear God, a boy is dead. He's truly and awfully dead, but Ciel feels no emotion but relief. He is tragically dead, this child who cried and laughed and played and tried to survive this harsh place, but the boy with the one good eye cannot summon a second of pity because in exchange for Freckleface's life, Alois is spared. It is not him, and the world is allowed to continue to turn for at least one more day...

"Ciel!"

A crash of a body into bodies and heads move behind Ciel like the tops of corn stalks in a field with a child racing through them. And then Alois is there, in front of him, slouched socks, no blazer, the top two buttons completely undone, and his hair a complete mess.

But the look on his face is what rivets Ciel to the moment: Alois is pale, his eyes full of unspilled tears of dismay and unrestrained relief.

Alois.

_He thought it was me..._

"Ciel..."

Long, warm arms grab him, pull him in and squeeze him again until he cannot breathe. A hot murmuring mantra of his name is repeated into his ear over and over and over punctuated by small kisses.

The Ciel of just this morning would have pushed him off, would have told him to stop pawing at him and to keep his distance on instinct alone. The Ciel of two months ago would have noticed how every boy watched them now and _that_ Ciel would have gauged their judgment against his pride.

But that Ciel has had almost every shield and mask he has blasted away to bits, and in the confusion of emotion, he is unable to summon the fragments to even make a passable attempt to push Alois away. And so he does the only thing he can do. Instead of fighting the grip, he sinks into it, letting Alois mold him just as desperately as he wishes to his own shaking frame. For the first time, love is stronger than pride. There are no blinkers obscuring what vision he has left. There is no lens of black or white.

Finally, Ciel _understands everything._

_But it is too late._

Alois lets Ciel go of his own volition, but it is only so that he can cradle his counterpart's face with both hands.

"Are you okay?"

Ciel nods, but his mind is screaming, _No!_ _The headmaster is likely still in the building!_ He is exhausted with worry and fear. And this is why he suddenly realizes it has gotten very quiet. He thought, perhaps, it was because of the spectacle they were witnessing that was causing the boys to keep their distance, but upon inspection, their faces do not reflect what Ciel would expect to see there.

And then it occurs to him, finally, that the other boys are staring at Alois in a new light. Freckleface couldn't have known that Alois had sabotaged him...but if he had suspected, if he had told others...

_They are afraid of Alois because they believe he killed Freckleface._

The second the idea slips into Ciel's mind, he cannot unthink it. It is too convenient. Freckleface could have exposed them both had he lived, but Alois' reaction alone is enough to exonerate him in Ciel's eyes.

Too many paths are converging at once, and this is a sign. Freckleface has had to die to prompt Ciel to action, and he does the most impulsive thing he can remember doing in his life. He grabs Alois' hand and pulls him. He tugs Alois out of the crowd which now parts for him while the boy with the sun-colored hair follows without question. He pulls him in front of Robert whose eyes he can feel boring into the back of his skull. He pulls Alois down the hallway in total silence until no one is around.

"Where are we going?"

Alois is full of crackling energy. Lightning practically arcs between his eyes which have lost their sorrow and now simply look manic. The grip on Ciel's hand is so tight, the smaller boy would complain except that, above all else, he must _not lose sight of him now._

"Bolt hole," Ciel says quickly.

"What?"

"You said you have bolt holes. Safe places. Take us to one of them _immediately_."

Ciel looks down the hallway, half expecting to the see the black spectre of the headmaster in pursuit. But they are alone for perhaps a second longer before adults and children turn this home into a hive of activity.

Thankfully, Alois understands, tugs his hand, and then Ciel is racing after him into an empty classroom. Alois fishes out a key from his pocket and turns it in the lock of a door in the back of the classroom which Ciel has never noticed until now. The door leads to a spiral staircase that opens into what appears to be a storage room for very old books, ledgers of some kind, below. It is musty and smells dangerously of mold and mildew. And then Alois shuts the door and the darkness is complete. Ciel's free hand instinctively throws forward and he manages to hit the rail.

"Be careful."

"Thank you for that advice," he retorts, his heart pounding so hard he is surprised it does not illuminate the entire room with its red energy.

Finally, between Alois' hand and the railing, Ciel is on solid ground, the reeling of the staircase gone. He must wholly rely on Alois' now because, once again, he is in darkness. Even Alois' sunny head is invisible. Nevertheless, his voice floats out of the pitch. "There are underground passages down here. One of them leads to the boiler room and the incinerator. Another seems like it's for storage, but it's more like the place where junk goes to die. And there are rats down here, so be careful."

"Rats?"

"Yeah, but not any bigger than the ones up there...don't worry, at least you won't see them."

Alois is giggling as if this is the supreme adventure of a lifetime. And maybe it is to him in his relief, but it is only because he does not know what Ciel knows.

Ciel wants to say something. There are maddening words, last words, on his tongue. There is something inauspicious about this day, and it began with a midnight kiss and with woe. Perhaps life, as in fiction, had moments of foreshadowing which could only be understood as the last tragedy played itself out? Was it possible to sense them in the air, in the red thread of fate that connected him to Alois in the way he could see the path take shape in a narrative?

If so, then Ciel had squandered the beginning of his last day of joy with angry words to the only person who had truly reached out to him as an equal, as a partner, and as a friend.

" _I love you and that's far fucking more than any other person in this fucking place has in claim over you."_

Alois is right. He deserves everything. But now it may be too late for them both...

(to be continued...)


	12. Black and White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ciel and Alois have run away underneath the halls of St. Sebastian's Home for Boys, but they have very different ideas about how to deal with the fallout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my friends.
> 
> No, this fic is not dead. You can thank Kate for that. Kate texts me EVERY DAY to finish this. If you like this story, you should mentally hug her (because she hates real hugs). You should also thank Sachelarot because she keeps my Ciel voice and my Sebastian voice in practice.
> 
> WARNING: The two chapters that follow, especially ch 13, have trigger warnings for...pretty much everything. If you have a trigger, I'm probably going to be punching the crap out of it.
> 
> If you just picked up this story yesterday, hello. Thanks for reading. If you have been here since the beginning on ff.net, I bow at your feet and beg for forgiveness.
> 
> ~CaladriaHaru

 

* * *

"Men deceive themselves in respect of their own affairs, and most of all in respect of those on which they are most bent; so that either from impatience or from self-deception, they rush upon undertakings for which the time is not ripe, and so come to an ill end."

-Niccolo Machiavelli

* * *

**Chapter 12: Black and White**

Alois and Ciel are alone under the floor of St. Sebastian's Home for Boys in a kind of primal darkness. It is cold to be in the dark, and strangely empty. Only Alois' hand in his anchors Ciel to reality, and that reality alone is enough to make him shiver. Despite valiant attempts to calmly assess the situation, the image of Freckleface's sightless visage staring out over his back is uncomfortably clear in his memory with no other current visual input to distract it. Ciel strains all of his senses and believes he can hear the boards creaking directly over their head, but he also thinks that his only functioning eye can see everything haloed in the faintest blue light, though he knows this is patently impossible.

The irony is not lost on him: no matter how long he has lived in darkness, he will continue to see and hear things that are not there.

Like hope.

What was he trying to accomplish by ordering Alois to take him to a bolt hole? This mad dash for solitude is only a delay at the very best. A retreat is useless when there are such clear and impregnable boundaries of wood and mortar that will still hold them for the consequences that will surely follow. The boy with one blue eye is fighting futilely against an understanding: there is no going back from this. There can be no banter over breakfast, no pilfered kisses from Alois in the lav between classes. They will not be able to sit companionably under that forlorn statue in the courtyard...

What does he mean to do now?

Ciel's feet are leaden, but he can feel Alois at his elbow, surefooted, his bright shadow, even in this darkness. Finally, he realizes that he is stubbornly putting one step in front of the other because the other boy is tugging him relentlessly, as if Alois has some supernatural ability to see in the dark.

"Where are we going?"

"Wherever you want to go. This is your idea."

_My idea. Of course. It is, after all, what he has always wanted to do with me... escape everything..._

But it isn't an escape. Not really.

"Take me to someplace where there is a little light."

The boy with the charcoal hair hears a slight exhalation of disappointment.

"If you want to properly apologize to me for this morning, I'll accept it in the dark." Alois' voice suddenly tickles his ear. "There are lots of ways you can make things up to me in the dark..."

 _This insufferable_ boy! The earth could be exploding around them, and Alois would count it as romantic accompaniment to his lascivious requests. And yet, there is a kind of comfort in his predictable advances, his unwavering ability to make Ciel believe that the world exists just for them.

Ciel plants his hand on the face, over the lips, which are breaking his resolve. There is true and present danger for them both, and Ciel does not know how much time they have before they are dragged before authorities.

"Alois...please."

_Please..._

Alois' face leaves his palm, and then his hand is gripped again.

"Okay, it's fucking serious. I get it."

Alois' heart is in turmoil. In the past few hours, he has gone through more emotional extremes than the past five years combined. And that is saying something. His fury of the morning, the desperation and fear when he heard the commotion of boys murmuring death, of overwhelming relief at finding Ciel unharmed, the excitement of the hand that pulled him away, down into a place where only he was the master. And now the foreboding of a simple word like "please" is stirring a pot that has already been on the verge of boiling over for weeks.

" _Please."_

Ciel has never said "please." For anything. He has accepted everything, good or bad, as his due. He did not thank and he did not entreat. He was a king of his personal nutshell...

So what the fuck did this "please" mean? Nothing good. Nothing nothing.

Carefully Alois picks his way through the passage, a hand in front of him, a hand behind in Ciel's, and silence everywhere. Honestly, he has a box of matches in his pocket-he never goes anywhere without them-but he wants Ciel to grasp the important concept that the palm he grips so ardently now can lead him out into the light, no matter how dark it is. He hopes his fingers aren't trembling, but he wants this to be the moment that Ciel admits that they should leave right now. Right. Fucking. Now. Because that shit was too close. When he had thought the body was Ciel...

Darkness. This? In these tunnels? This was the noonday sun compared to that moment. An unlit service tunnel was nothing- _that_  darkness terrified Alois...

Thankfully, he had been making preparations in stolen moments. Despite Ciel's stalling, eventually the status quo would not be maintained despite all of Ciel's efforts to keep him in line. At this point, all Alois needs is the word to get them out...but it has to be Ciel's choice. That is the one truth he learned from their fight that morning. He could pick Ciel up and carry his little king kicking and screaming away from St. Sebastian's Home for Boys for his own good, dammit, but unless Ciel sees it as his idea, it will never work. That unbelievable, precious boy would find a way to sabotage it, and Alois has no doubt that Ciel's big brain could be just as effective at destroying himself as saving himself. If he forced him to do something against his will, Alois struggles with the idea that he would be no worse than the monster already doing just fucking  _that._ So, somehow, some way, he  _has_  to convince this boy to walk out those doors and never ever ever let Claude Faustus near him again.

But how to start this battle?

A reddish glow and heat indicate that they are getting closer to the boiler room. Alois pauses, whispers "stay here" and then checks to see that the coast is clear. "Okay..." And then he leads his smaller companion towards the light.

The boiler room is stacked with wood. It radiates heat and light, and Ciel can begin to see Alois' face again as they approach. His eyes glisten still, his cheeks shine. At the dawn of the universe, there was only this glow, he thinks, emerging from the void to give life to everything...

Ciel's breath catches in his throat.

_Alois is the only light I have left..._

It is an emotion he cannot hold tight enough to contain. It is spilling out and over the sides of his hands and all he can do is watch stupidly, unsure even how to hold onto it. He makes his lips move.

"What if the tender returns?"

Alois sits down on a pile of split logs. He helps Ciel do the same.

"You can hear him a mile away. I know where we are. I mean, we're going to have to move to another spot soon, but you are shaking..."

It is not from cold, although Ciel is always cold. Almost always. It is a kind mistake on Alois' part, but it is a mistake nevertheless. And then, as if to torment him, Alois wraps an arm around his frame and pulls him close. The crackling of the fire in the boiler, red streaks from the coals, are a surreal backdrop for this moment at the end of moments. The literal setting matches the figurative one in Ciel's heart, except this fire has been held in check and is not burning every bridge...as he is about to.

"Freckleface is dead." He begins. It solidifies the reality of it.

" _Boys die in this place..."_

Alois sighs. "Yeah. Fucking shame. I mean, he lived through this morning when I wanted to kill someone. Isn't that something? Like, irony? Is that it?"

Ciel's face turns, heart skipping a beat.

"You saw him this morning?"

"When I went to get some candy...oh!" He fishes into the pockets of his shorts. "Here, have one of these." He lifts Ciel's hand and presses the paper-covered treat into it with a grin. "Something new. It's good. And you need to keep your strength up."

But Ciel is shaking his head. "Did anyone else see you speaking? What was it he said?"

Alois purses his lips. His answer is too long in coming for the smaller boy's liking. "That he knew I had sabotaged him after the fire. That he was going to tell."

_He figured it out._

Of course he would.

"Ciel, you know...that wasn't me. I didn't...I mean, let's be honest, it doesn't sound good but..."

Ciel cuts him off. "I do not believe you killed Freckleface, Alois."

Alois unconsciously lets an indrawn breath go. He does not mind that Ciel knows he has murdered. He had reasons. It was for  _survival_. He  _does_ mind it if Ciel does not trust him when he's telling the truth. So it always has to be truth. At least between them, always. Even if Ciel is going to be an ass, and even if he is going to be silent.

And Ciel is silent. He knows he should come clean about Faustus being in the building, but he is fully aware that in doing so, this calm moment with Alois will end, and perhaps it is the last calm moment they will ever have. When Alois is not calm, he does...exceedingly rash things. And the danger has increased exponentially since Alois was setting fires in storerooms.

"The other boys will think you pushed him down the stairs," Ciel begins. He is beginning to feel like an echo of himself, but it has been twisted. Instead of imagining himself at the top of the world, the worms and insects beneath his feet, he can only crawl on his hands and knees and feel out each inch until he can reach temporary shelter. "If he confronted you, then others know or suspect. It may not be safe here for you after all."

"Wait...wait wait, it's not safe for  _me?_ " Alois turns his body. "Ciel, did you look around in that  _total darkness_? I got in here. I know this place. I'm safe, okay? I can be safe wherever I am."

Ciel shakes his head. His trembling body knows the feeling of that creature who terrified him in the hall in the light of day not a few hours earlier.

_This spider lurks in every corner of this place!_

Alois is getting frustrated for the thousandth time, but the stakes are far more pressing now. "You think I'm dumb because I tell you about how I can't make plans. But I'm a survivor above all things. I'm the bug that goes to ground until it's safe to come out. I can do that much. I can make a plan  _work_. I can get us  _both_ out. Let me do it."

"It's impossible." Ciel squeezes the candy in his fist. For both of their sakes, Alois must relent or they will both be lost. "The first flakes of snow have fallen. I cannot survive out of doors. Unlike you, the only faculties I have cultivated in my life will be useless in that plan."

"That's not true, Ciel. It's not. You have to trust me. I can make it work." He pauses. "What about the post? You made a big deal about that adventure. Getting things to make a letter, mail it...I have some paper, some envelopes. I even stole the nicest pen I could find. Write a letter to the police, even. To the fucking queen if you want. Someone will have to come investigate, won't they? It can go out  _tonight!"_

"And what shall I tell them?"

"You tell them what's going on, obviously!"

"Because a child will be believed over the Headmaster's word? Because a child can move the earth on its axis? I would not be believed. I would have bared the shame of my life for nothing. Worse, there will be punishments involved for daring to drag a 'noble' man's good name through the mud. I will be crucified for my cry for help. There are no paths out of that ignominy for my future."  _And there will be no future for you, anyway. You would not leave me, so they would take you and throw you into a prison for Men, and that will be the end for you._

Alois can only stare.

Ciel makes zero sense to Alois. He seems to have no pride left, but then he talks big words like "ignominy," and while Alois has no idea what it means, he can figure it out from context-some kind of shame.  _Nothing_  Ciel is saying or doing is sane. Freckleface's death was a shock, it was a blow. But this...

"We have disappeared in the middle of the revelation, so this complicates the issue," Ciel begins almost academically. "Undoubtedly, those boys have been talking. Right now, while it will most likely be considered an accident, your name will come up. The surest way to end this is if I confess that I tripped him. Just claiming to be a witness to his clumsiness is not good enough-"

"What the fuck?" Alois goes white. His chest hurts. He cannot believe his ears. "No, Ciel, just...no!"

The boy with the one good eye seems utterly resolute on  _this_  plan that is just...crazy. It's  _crazy_.

"This will work. For the time being. It is a temporary solution for-"

Alois shakes his head. In the ruddy glow of the burning coals, it looks like his head has just caught fire...and it feels like it has.

"You're insane if you think I'm going to let you claim murder to save me. It doesn't even make sense. You were in class and everyone saw you..."

"It happened before class. I could have done it."

Alois stares agape. He's witnessing it. The last shred of anything that could have resembled Ciel Phantomhive is washing away in a tide of the broken pieces of his soul. He has never been so inexplicable and yet so transparent.

"If you do something shitty like that, I'll start pushing kids down stairs until you have a solid, innocent alibi."

 _Trying to out-crazy me? Fuck you, Ciel_.

And Alois is sickeningly pleased at the expression on the other boy's face in the firelight. Ciel believes him. He believes he will do it.

 _Only telling the truth with_ you _, but you know that by now..._

And he is dead serious.

But Ciel is just as relentless in his casting about for ludicrous schemes as Alois is in thwarting them. And Alois knows they are at an impasse that will get neither of them anywhere. Unless.

"Listen, there is only one way to settle this. Only one." He holds up his pointer finger.

Ciel feels sick. At some point in his life he had been clear-headed, he had been able to  _think_ , and then this boy had come and made him  _care._  If the Headmaster had simply won. If there had been no Alois...

The tables have turned. Alois is confident he has a solution, and Ciel hates the desperation in the tone of his response:

"What is it?"

But Ciel knows. He knows it before Alois even says it.

"Chess."

Ciel looks away.

"I'm serious, Ciel. I'm serious. Listen to my terms. We play one more round of chess for everything.  _Everything,_ do you understand? That means if I win, you have to make the plan to get out of here. It's the same as before. But...if you win, I'll shut up."

The boy with the one good eye blinks and narrows his eye. What is this?

"You heard me right. If you win, then you do whatever you want to do. You can own up to Freckleface's death. I'll look surprised and ashamed of you. I'll take care of you after they fucking  _beat_  you black and blue and throw you into solitary for a week. And  _worse._ " He almost can't get the words out. It's so hard. To say this one thing is enough to make him go dumb, but to  _mean_ it is absolutely unthinkable.

But he has to meet Ciel's gamble with one just as audacious or this boy, almost unrecognizable now, will be a complete stranger in 24 hours...

And Alois cannot have that.

Ciel is looking for the loophole, but the wager is fairly clear. Alois is a fool, putting so much on the line for one game. It is almost too easy. Once he wins, Ciel can stop worrying. And then it can be  _over_. All of it. The boy with one good eye has no idea what the plan would be to save Alois after he has won, but more than half of every plan so far has been simply getting Alois to go along with it. If what the sunny-haired youth says is true, then that entire equation will already be taken care of because, no matter what, Alois would have to do what Ciel wanted.

And Ciel can certainly win at chess. He may still not be able to beat the Headmaster, but Alois is only a novice.

"One game?"

"One fucking game. One last one." Alois chokes on the promise. "After that...well, something is going to happen, and we probably won't be playing chess anymore..."

Ciel is having difficulty sorting fact from fiction, right from wrong. He's groping about for evidence of  _something_  solid in this constantly swaying, fraying, breaking bridge that is suspended over the chasm of absolute solitude. There is no safe passage anymore, not even a yarn's width of rope to hold him, and everything he is, above the fall.

But he knows that he does not have a choice in this. The boy with the one good eye will take the only option left at this point. Alois is right-he has lost the ability to see. The day his eye was destroyed physically was the the beginning of the end...

"I accept your terms." Ciel's shoulders slump, but there is a tiny vein of fire left in him. He remembers what it was like to be challenged once, back when challenges meant something. The other boy could be lying about his acquiescence when he is ultimately defeated, but Ciel does not think he is. Alois will try his best because now he has everything to lose. Ciel does not think it will make up for deficiencies in strategy, but at least it will be one, last, interesting game...

Alois takes a breath. The stakes are way too high, but it was the only way to get Ciel to stop fucking  _thinking madness_  for a few hours, as ironic as that is. He didn't think that there was a chance in hell of bringing this poor boy around to any kind of rational thought, so this was probably the best he could do considering the circumstances. But now the gun has been loaded with one bullet and he's spun the chamber and held it up to Ciel's head. It doesn't matter that in this analogy Ciel has to lose. He  _has_  to lose. It may be the only way to save them both...

The boy with the sunny hair turned blood red stands up.

"Okay, come with me. We need a better hiding spot and some candy. You'll need all your strength to beat me tonight." Alois is grinning because he's not sane. That is all. He and Ciel will have their ultimate showdown. He refuses to think beyond the game to the consequences. He's won something and he will put one foot in front of the other, break through the walls erected in front of him. He will not examine too closely what he has wagered nor the sincerity with which he made the wager. He will not calculate his chances needlessly. He simply has to win. That is all.

Ciel takes his hand. At last, he can shed the burdens of thought and consequence. For a few hours at least. He smiles at Alois because there are so few minutes left. He has calculated the outcome and consequences already. There is nothing left to hold back.

He squeezes Alois' hand. There is so much he wanted to have said, though the idea of saying it was unthinkable at the time. And now, time is running out and forcing his hand. But Ciel is too full of despair. It is a blackness that trickles over the sides of the glass, and all he can do is stare at it stupidly. Perhaps, in the long run, it would be better to keep his silence about how loving Alois had made him strong and weak at the same time. How it had become a monster far more dangerous than the Headmaster's hands, but so  _necessary_. Alois  _will_  survive, somehow, as long as he keeps his promise, and while his reckless lifestyle might seem to point to an early end regardless of what Ciel decides to say now, the boy with the charcoal-colored hair would like to think that Alois could live and leave this place strong. For both of them.

_There is nothing to atone for. I am damned, and no act of Heaven could turn that back now. Good. Then it is cruel, and I will tell him everything. He already made the promise anyway. Let these words be the final payment for the ferryman..._

The pressure on his hand causes the sunny-haired boy to turn to him a little too fast. That's when Alois realizes the danger. And he does not know how, but this look on Ciel's face in the hot hellfire light is...far too calm, far too...

_Emotional..._

"Alois..."

 _Holy fucking shit. He's going to say it._ Alois' instincts are moving his other hand before he even realizes what is going on. He plasters it across Ciel's mouth, much to the other boy's surprise.

Alois' heart is punching his brain, kicking it, screaming at him.

_Let him say it! You want him to say it! It's all you've ever fucking wanted!_

"No."

The tears are in his eyes. He doesn't want this. He wants it with his whole being. Alois wants to live inside Ciel's fragile heart, to put his head up to this burning soul and listen to its magnificent music until it drowns out the universe. Alois would shed his skin one strip at a time if he could be allowed to do it just to get inside there, and then his own poor, cold soul would come to life at one soft word from Ciel Phantomhive's lips.

But he already knows what those words would mean. It would mean Ciel has given up, because the pride of the Ciel he knew would never let him drop that mask so willingly. He wants to hear those words, but he doesn't. He  _doesn't_. Not now, not  _this_  way.

Ciel is stupidly trying to move the hand on his mouth so he can speak, but Alois has turned his head away so he can pointedly not watch.

"God, no. Ciel. Please. No. Just...just wait. Don't say it. Don't say any fucking thing to me anymore until I've beaten you at chess. Please."

This moment. He doesn't know for sure. Not  _for sure_ , but his gut was almost never wrong, was it? And, right now, Ciel doesn't know what he's doing. He's saying crazy things, committing to insanity. Will Alois be in time? Will the outcome of this last game mean anything, or does the fact that Ciel agreed to it just mean it's too late?

_If you say those words, I will cry. I'll break something. I'll do cartwheels down the hallway and bark like a dog. I'll turn around and around and around until I'm dizzy enough to fall into hell and then I'll take us both there..._

Alois waits. His holds his breath. If Ciel is gone for good, then he'll hear those sweet words right now because he can't exactly keep his hand on the boy's mouth forever. If Ciel has truly given up, then the boy with the wheat-colored hair will have the happiest moment to take with him to his grave-an event that would likely be sooner rather than later.

Ciel's eyebrows draw together.

When he nods his head, silent acquiescence to Alois' plea, he thinks he almost understands why his sunny-haired companion starts to weep, but there is nothing to do for it.

Large tears collect, course down Alois' ruddy cheeks, and he doubles over with a heavy exhale, hands on his knees, as if he has just run all the way from London.

"God. Okay." He sniffles loudly, runs the back of his hand across his wet face, dragging snot the entire way until Ciel must shake off the moment for the sake of some simple decency.

Pulling his handkerchief from his pocket, the boy with the one good eye pushes it into Alois' chest. There is something comforting about these motions, these imperious words: "Whatever you are crying about now, do stop. You look pitiably disgusting."

Alois' tears seem to flow harder, but he is laughing now.

"Yes, my lord." He takes the handkerchief and makes a show of blowing his nose into it musically, messily, completely without regard for the noble britches they would be stowed in.

And then his face goes blank and his head comes up.

Ciel blinks and opens his mouth to speak, but Alois brings a finger to his lips. He just heard a sound, and maybe it's a rat, but maybe it's not. They are both officially on the lam, and while it brings on a kind of excitement bordering freedom, nothing can be resolved if they get caught now.

Silently, he grabs Ciel's hand, and the boy with one good eye does not resist his pull. Ciel has surrendered to Alois' knowledge of the underground of this building. If only he could surrender everything else without a fight.

Alois moves them through the passages beneath the school with terrifying ease. He is at home down here, Ciel realizes. At home in the shadows, in the quiet and dark places. And his stashes seem endless as well, and not just of candy. Over time, Alois has pilfered whole stores of food- everything from cans of beans to boxes of biscuits that he has hidden in empty crates to protect them from the rodents. Alois lights a candle and props it up on a box. Ciel sneezes and coughs, the air laden with shifted dust, and he holds his breath as a blanket from nowhere is thrown around him.

"This is madness," Ciel says when he is sitting on a crate and Alois' shoulders are pressed against his, Alois' perpetual furnace heating them both under the blanket.

"This?" Alois asks incredulously. "This is the first sane thing we've ever done. No one will find us here. No one will find us until we want them to. Until we're done with our little pissing contest."

Ciel frowns.

Above them, clearly, the wood creaks in patterns like racing feet. Ciel can imagine the chaos, the manhunt. One boy is dead, two are missing. Perhaps the search will include dogs. When that happens, there will be no escape. But Alois is right about one thing-they will not be found until this thing between them has concluded with a victor.

Alois takes a deep breath and settles against Ciel's hip with no complaint. Their deal has made his panicking little love settle down, at least. Ciel is not telling Alois that they cannot possibly do this. He is not demanding that anything be done right now. It is as if their agreement has created a strange bubble of infinite space and time that is, even now, curling around them, hiding them from the rest of the world. If only it could last.

Ciel coughs quietly in the dust, but It is the first calm moment that Alois can breathe since...

There is a nostalgia in the air that takes this moment back in time to another dark, endless day and night...

Another small, coughing boy. Another hopeless case...

Ciel feels Alois' muscles tighten next to him.

"Alois..."

The silence from his companion is worrying. A few seconds ago, this bright flame had been dancing in an unseen gust of activity and energy. Now it stands still, and the shadows in the room loom darker and more defined like this.

"I was just thinking...this reminds me of...of the last day with Luca."

_Luca. His little brother._

But Ciel does not need to prompt him further. The words begin to flow softly, like a water spigot that, tightly closed once upon a time, is pried open by the tiniest degrees. First, a hesitant trickle...

"That room we were in was really crappy. It was the basement of some old widow's flat, and she was an evil bitch because she wanted way more for the space than it was worth. But, I had this sick kid...this sick, beautiful kid brother, and I couldn't just get a place  _anywhere_. Some of the nicer whores offered to give us a place for free in their flat, but I don't trust johns. And what if one of them had seen a helpless kid in there? I mean, they're already paying, right? And Luca couldn't have done anything to stop them even if he hadn't been dying..."

Alois shivers. He pulls his knees up, and the heat under the blanket begins to mount.

Ciel does not know what to do or say. He feels as if he is being pulled against his will into the crucible of Alois' madness and is being forced to glimpse the moment when everything collapsed. The air is heavy with it. But he cannot make the boy with the hair of flame stop, and so the spigot turns again, opens wider. The trickle becomes a stream.

"It was kind of like this, that last day. Though I guess I didn't know it was the last day. We had a crappy piece of candle and we were huddled just like this because he was really cold. He said that he could breathe easier when I was there, like, literally. But I  _had_  to work at night because of the old bitch. And so we would lay there all cuddled up and he couldn't talk, but I could. Because I don't shut up. And we didn't have a lot of happy memories, but I used to remind him about the fields around our house in the spring. How it would be all shitty brown for three months and then, one day, full of tiny droplets of bright yellow-green. And the baby robins would get all fat and plop around, flying stupidly into things all the time. Like that one baby bird we found in the grain bin the summer Luca was three. His face was so round and  _amazed_  at things like a stupid fucking baby  _bird._ He went around cheeping for days after it disappeared. I think a cat got it, even though I tried to protect it in an old crate I found, but I wasn't going to tell Luca that. So I just told him it flew away and found its mommy. The same way I tried to explain why mom and dad weren't ever going to be there again. Because they flew away to Heaven."

Alois sniffs.

Ciel is caged now. This is not like the first night in the library. This Alois is different.  _He_  is different. Once upon a time, Ciel had masks and walls, and a hundred defenses against words that chiseled and bore and ground away. Now, the words are pressing like sharpened needles into parts of him that have not felt pain in so many years that he is paralyzed by it. By someone else's sorrow. By  _this boy's_  sorrow.

The tone changes from nostalgia to regret. The water is flowing now, flowing hard and hot, filling the space around them, a perfect trap, but Ciel cannot move to find an escape.

"I shouldn't have brought Luca to the city. I thought it would be better, that I could find work, but the city was full of shitty people trying to do the same thing. And by the time I figured out that it was a bad idea, Luca was already so sick, and I thought trying to take him back to the countryside would kill him." He chuckles so awfully. The water has covered their feet and legs. It is creeping up their torsos and Ciel can do nothing but listen.

"But he was going to die. He died in that awful little room and I wasn't even  _there_."

Alois' tears somehow reflect more light than there is in this hidden, dark room in the middle of no man's land.

"I should have brought him back. I should have. And then...and then...and then I could have buried him under a tree, maybe. In a  _nice_ place. There was this field we used to play in..." Alois chokes. "God, I haven't thought about this...I haven't thought about it in years. But...but I gave that perfect, sweet little boy's body to some fucker who just...just chucked him into a pauper's grave. Next to other people who didn't mean shit to anyone. I just let them  _do_  that to the only good person in the whole shitty city. He was so good. He was so  _precious._ "

Alois' hands clench into fists. The spigot is running silent, far under the water line, and the drowning deluge is at their chin, their cheeks, their noses, and still climbing inexorably enough to suffocate the life from both of them. And Ciel does not know what to do but sit. Sit and feel the air of the blows Alois rains upon himself. The boy with the one good eye was once exceptional at bearing a heavy burden, but he had no practice bearing anyone else's. It had not ever occurred to him to do so. It had never occurred to him, in his warm house with his tea and the food he picked at and the loving arms that held him and the life he had, that only a few miles away other little boys lived in basements because it was preferable to living with whores.

He does not like it. He wants to push it away. He is not required to feel this pain, to feel this...

Empathy.

But Alois is drowning them both, and Ciel has given up even the thought of stopping him. After all, Alois is not doing this to  _Ciel_ , he is doing it to  _himself_.

"Luca was the one thing in the whole world that I loved, and I fucking  _failed_  him. I couldn't even give him someplace warm and pretty to rot in. I couldn't give him even fucking  _that_. I let him go. I just let them take him away. I just  _left._ I let his last moments be alone, and now he's alone. And I want to tell myself that he's flown away to Heaven, but if I do that, then it means that I will never see him again, do you understand that? Because I'm not going to Heaven when I die. I'm a  _murderer._ " He turns to Ciel, and the raw emotion there plunges them both beneath the boiling water.

Alois' hands are suddenly on Ciel's shoulders, branding him. The war between the fire and deluge is reaching a crescendo.

"Do you understand me, Ciel? I'm a murderer. My only chance at happiness forever and ever is to find it  _now,_ to have it  _now_ while I'm alive _._ I've tried not to believe in hell, but then where is my brother? Where is Luca? Is he trapped between worlds in some cold darkness? Is he just totally  _gone_? That's not fair. That can't be, I can't believe that, so if Heaven exists for him then that means that we're never going to see each other again..."

Anguish.

Ciel opens his mouth, but he has no words. Alois does not want comfort, he wants to impale himself because he does not know how to attone for this thing that turned his heart into something too swollen and big for a human frame, and distorted a mind too far for a child's endurance.

Alois' next words sink in too deeply:

" _This is why you have to lose, Ciel._ You have to lose.  _You_  have to lose because it is the only way I can  _save_  you. _"_

_Because he could not save his brother..._

He says it, finally. The swirling madness in Alois' eyes has reached dangerous levels. The elements are waging war for his soul, and Ciel cannot comfort him, cannot save him, because his is the heaviest hand of all. The hand that holds him under...holds them both under...

* * *

Nothing about this plan to play chess one last time is remotely rational, and Ciel knows it on several levels. For one thing, Alois demands to use the chess set in the library, not re-create a board down in the depths of St. Sebastian's with alternate objects for pieces.  _That_  would have made the most sense and been far less dangerous, but ever since Alois' poignant eulogy for Luca, he has been crackling with that tense energy that Ciel could never control. All the smaller boy can hope to do now is be a lightning rod to draw the dangerous elements to him, to focus this broiling mass of unpredictable chaos away from the rest of the home until the wager between them is settled.

Unfortunately, Ciel is far from settled either. Ever since Alois put a hand over his mouth and shut down Ciel's imminent confession earlier, he has been on edge. There had been a window of time for those words, but that time has gone and Ciel's heart has lapsed into a strange kind of numbness. Compounding the issue is the bleeding place where Alois' sorrow had finally managed to lodge. It is not pity that Ciel feels-every child in this home had a sad story-but he had not realized how far he had allowed the sunny-haired youth passage into his protected spaces.

It is eating him alive.

It is making concentration difficult.

 _I only need to win one last game,_ his mind repeats, hoping that the confidence of his game and the familiar feel of a firm objective can make up for the fact that he is in extremely uncharted waters.

At the door of the library, Ciel wants to tell Alois, once again, that this is madness. That coming here, of all places, holds its own dangers, but he already knows what Alois' response will be because he has already voiced it several times:

" _What does it matter to you if it is here or there?_ You  _are the one who wants to claim a murder you didn't commit. By comparison, this is really nothing, isn't it?"_

Alois' logic is flawed because he does not understand that this is actually all  _for_  him, but then again, that disagreement is at the heart of this contest, and the only way out is through.

The library lock turns and the subtle click of entry from a miraculously quiet hallway is the gateway to the end. Though Ciel is dubious, the faint flicker of a flame confirms, by measures, that they are alone in this room that holds so many memories. Ciel's companion says nothing but goes directly to the chess board and begins to lay out pieces.

How long has it been since that first night when Alois had handled these precious objects as if they were a child's toy soldiers? Now he places each on the board with precision and gravitas, and Ciel finally realizes just how serious Alois is.

This is not a game anymore. This is life and death...

The first crack in Ciel's armor makes itself known. In a game of life and death, he has the distinct disadvantage since he has long ago given up the balance between the two.

The boy with one good eye shivers at he sits in his seat and surveys that darkness once again.

Despite Alois' single-minded bent, he pauses, and Ciel cannot keep himself from sputtering when Alois casually unbuttons and takes off not only his own blazer, but his shirt as well.

"What on earth are you doing?" the smaller boy stammers, but the import becomes clear when Alois begins manhandling him, pulling off Ciel's own blazer so that he can double up on the shirts, forcing the smaller boy's fists through one armhole and then the other. "This is unacceptable," Ciel protests, trying to push Alois away without touching his bare chest (an impossible task), but the taller boy is not having it.

"Shut it, Ciel. You're already shivering. I can't have you blaming your losing on being cold."

But it is not the cold that causes Ciel's teeth to chatter lightly.

"You seem quite sure of yourself," he responds, forcing his jaw to work without a traitorous staccato.

Alois pulls the collar around Ciel's neck and begins to button him securely. "Maybe. Or maybe I just want you to watch me totally trounce you half-naked. Never thought of that?"

Ciel blinks.

_Is he now, of all times and places..._

But the molten look Alois gives him after he has settled his blazer back over his shoulders is enough to prove that there are some things about Alois Trancy that are, beautifully, frustratingly, never-changing.

"You are an imbecile," Ciel states flatly.

"Feeling a little like yourself again?" Alois asks as he throws his blazer back on over a bare chest like some kind of barbarian, a half smile caught in a cocked head. "Good." The smile disappears. "If your pride wants to live, then  _maybe_ you will beat me. If  _you_  want to live, then you'll lose. Prepare to lose."

"Against you?" Ciel smiles darkly. "You are a hundred years too early for this match."

"Then you are a shitty teacher," Alois sits down across the table and his watery blue eyes meet Ciel's one robin blue eye.

"You are just a shitty student," Ciel states.

Alois blinks.

"If you think swearing at me before we start this match is going to somehow get you points by making me lose concentration, you're wrong." But the tentative smile speaks otherwise. "But, for the record, I love it, and you should swear more often."

And with that, Alois puts his hand on his first piece without taking his gaze from his opponent, and white begins the game.

Ciel is somewhat surprised that Alois doesn't use an opening with his beloved White Knight, considering the stakes of this game, but it may mean that pragmatism has finally won out over his obsession with the symbolism. White Queen's pawn takes two steps forward, and Ciel cannot help but wonder if Alois' strategy is going to hinge on just freeing up the queen, the piece with the most move options on the board. Ciel mirrors that move with Black Queen's pawn and Alois' next pawn move. By his third turn, Ciel has already moved his knight out in front, trying to bait his opponent, but Alois says nothing. He does not move his own knight out until his fifth turn, and at that point it looks as if Alois is making a concerted effort to control the center of the board...

 _A couple months ago, Alois did not know what chess was,_ Ciel reminds himself. But this progress isn't a complete surprise. He spent time teaching the boy the concept of openings and board control with the same moves the Headmaster himself had taught him. And the Headmaster, so far, had proven to be the better tactician all around.

For his 6th turn, Alois castles his king, moving his king to the place where his knight had been and putting his rook where his bishop once was. Ciel follows suit with black.

Both sides build what appear to be solid defenses. The boy with the charcoal hair is moderately impressed. He has beaten Alois in four moves, but white has already survived 11 moves. It seems that, miraculously, Alois may actually have a chance...

Then Alois starts to really move his pieces.

And they are reckless.

Ciel draws first blood by his eleventh turn, taking a white pawn, but Alois counters by sneaking his bishop almost all the way to the other end of the board to claim a pawn and at the same time placing Ciel's Black King in check. Alois does not say it out loud, though, and Ciel wonders if he even realizes what he has done. Regardless, Ciel's next move must be to protect his king, and the bishop is easily and elementarily removed by his own Black Knight. As quickly as the threat was there, it is eliminated.

_Alois, what are you doing?_

In two more full turns, Alois' White Queen gets her revenge on his Black Knight and takes him. But that is the last conquest for awhile. White has gone off-book now, and Ciel does not recognize anything of his own teaching in the flurry of moves that follow.

From an untrained eye, Alois' next few moves look like those of a novice who is more interested in confrontation with pieces instead of strategy, because he rushes pieces into threatened squares and ends up losing several to Ciel's in the process. By the 19th turn, however, Ciel realizes that he has made no real headway in his own offense. In fact, he has been so tied up with removing the annoyances from his path, that he does not realize that he has been on the defensive...

In the 21st round, Ciel finally moves his queen out from the back line, but by then, he can see every problem in his defense. He cannot move his pawns backward, obviously, and he hasn't succeeded in keeping one single piece in Alois' territory.

 _How is this happening?_  He looks up at Alois, as he has done so many times tonight, but Alois is pointedly not looking back, not speaking to him, nor is he taking time to cheer over every captured piece of Ciel's as he has in the past.

Alois grips the sides of the chess table as if it might float away. It is the only hint that he feels...anything. The stillness in the air over this game is so palpable that Ciel's breathing stops.

The boy with the charcoal hair wants to halt this game. He cannot feel his fingertips and his feet have gone numb, but not from the cold, from a creeping dread. He has no idea how long they have been playing, but Alois' has  _never_  been this focussed for a game. By this time any other night, Alois would be whining to read more of  _Treasure Island_  or attempting to surreptitiously kiss Ciel when he wasn't looking.

Alois checks his king again, this time with his White Knight, on his twenty-third turn.

It is the kiss of death.

Ciel can maneuver his king out of the knight's path, and he even ends up capturing the offensive White Knight with his rook, but then Alois drives  _his_ rook up the board, and between his queen, his rook, and the prison of the back wall, Ciel's Black King is finally pinned down. Perfectly.

Alois says nothing. He does not look up. The boy with one good eye feels sick to his stomach.

Silence and the White King reign over everything.

"If you have some fucking brilliant move, you better pull it out right now, Ciel."

The boy with the one good eye stares at the board and then his gaze slides to his opponent.  _Now_  he can see it-Alois is waiting for Ciel to take his turn because he cannot comprehend that he has  _won_.

 _He is waiting for this to be a trick_ , Ciel realizes.

In the candlelight, Alois' eyes are practically glowing with maniacal intensity. His hands are clenching either side of the table, and Ciel can hear both of their hearts beating in the quietude that follows the loud demand.

But for Ciel, there is no chess board between them, just the pit he himself had created. It is so deep and hollow, and this emptiness yawning between them is suffocating. Ciel can't draw a breath.

"Well? Let's see what it is. Maybe a rule you forgot to tell me?"

Alois is not joking around. His grip on the table intensifies to the point where it has begun to shiver slightly from the force his small hands are exerting.

Ciel looks down at the board, at that gulf between them. It was supposed to be the yawning pit to keep him safe from anything Alois could do to force his hand. It was the moat around his personal castle...

But perhaps he  _has_  forgotten something. As if Alois' words can create a saving rule Ciel does not know, he tries he draws a map of lines from his king to every square adjacent. And at each and every point, a white piece is staring him down from a superior position.

"Come on, Ciel. Don't fuck with me." Alois' voice quavers. "Do not do it. Don't draw this out. Come on. You've beaten me a hundred times. You've  _always_  beaten me. You're just trying to piss me off now."

 _It was not a fair game!_  The voice roars in Ciel's head, begins backtracking through the moves, reviewing every step, every logical process that lead from the first turn to this. But the verdict is simple:  _Alois did not play any kind of game that I taught him. And I have lost._

A rational voice in his head reminds him that by cheating he could easily dissuade Alois of his victory.

_No._

The end is coming. For better or for worse, Ciel must accept it. He made the wager as a man, and to cheat now, when Alois had so tragically and masterfully defeated him, literally, at his own game, was a line even Ciel would not cross.

He reaches a shaking hand to the board, and pushes the Black King over. The sound of the marble piece hitting the board is a death knell in his skull.

"Checkmate," Ciel concedes in a voice that is unfaltering.

Alois stares at him, and while Ciel has been witness to hundreds of sad, angry, manic, and confused expressions in the time he has come to know this most precious of people, he has never seen this look.

"I...I fucking won?"

Ciel is silent.

"I'll kill you if you're lying to me right now," Alois leans over the board, hands on white and black squares, hanging onto a ledge over the edge of everything.

"You know you have won," Ciel sinks into his shirt and into the slightly larger one that bears Alois' perfect scent. Somehow, even with the lavender soaps, Alois always only smells like...like Alois. In an attempt to rally, Ciel's face fixes into a scowl. It is a sham, as everything about him is. "To drag it on would be either be insulting or prove you an idiot."

That finally seems to sink in.

"Holy shit," Alois whispers.

He is about to begin celebrating, Ciel can sense it. And when that happens, he will lose any and all chance to know how this game happened. And some tenacious sense of pride demands answers.

"Where did you learn this kind of game?" The boy with the charcoal hair finally asks.

Alois blinks. His hands release their tension on the board. He sits down in his seat, jolted into a kind of sane tone of voice. "You taught me, Ciel."

The other boy shakes his head, his expression finally beginning to reveal his aggravation. "I did not..."

" _Yes!_ " And then quieter, "Yes, you did, Ciel. You showed me the game. You taught me all of the pieces, the object. You played so many stupid games and  _beat_  me so many times. You even told me that I lost  _well_ , whatever the fuck  _that_  meant.  _You_ taught me this game. You taught me how to win, even if I didn't win it  _your_  way." Alois slides out of his seat. "Don't you see? You keep thinking I'm some kind of cute pet with fangs, and I've got those, yeah, but I'm  _not_  an idiot. I can learn.  _You are not a shitty teacher,_ Ciel, you're fucking  _brilliant_  and you just have to fucking  _wake up!"_ Alois' hands are on his shoulders. It is so familiar, this pose. How many times has Alois begged and begged and begged...

Ciel's eyebrows draw together. The mask he had been attempting to fix for weeks disintegrates under the weight of  _everything._

Alois is so oddly calm and composed that it adds to the completely surreal nature of this moment. He is not the boy with the insane gleam who very nearly murdered a boy. Now he is just a boy in desperate, desperate love. And it is finally so  _obvious._

"Ciel, I don't need you to be a fucking soldier. I don't want you to give up  _anything;_ I want you to  _let me fucking help._  And I  _can_  help. And now that you lost, Ciel, you have to honor our goddamn agreement."

"Oh? And what, pray tell, is that?"

Ciel's heart stops. Because it was not his voice that responded...

Alois gasps.

The door to the library finally creaks subtly, and three blue eyes are drawn to the edge of the candlelight where the Headmaster, Claude Faustus, is leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed nonchalantly. In the subtle glow of a shuddering flame, his yellow eyes glitter behind shimmering panes of glass, and his smile is absolutely sinister.

The boy with the one good eye stares in horror. More than Alois' victory of a few moments ago, he needs this to be an illusion. But as Claude Faustus' gloved hands emerge from his coat and he comes away from the wood slowly, Ciel knows that they have both been completely undone.

A old, familiar tightness begins to steal his breath, and all he is capable of doing is watch those limbs spread into the room to cut off any escape.

Alois is a bristling ball of energy, and it is unclear whether he is shaking because of fear, excitement, or both. However, without hesitation he steps between Ciel's chair and the looming, unwanted presence. "None of  _your_ fucking business," Alois spits out, and it takes the other boy a second to remember that the Headmaster had asked a question.

"Quite the contrary, 'White Knight,'" Claude Faustus smiles, "I believe that everything that happens in this school is my business. Especially when it entails two fugitives taking liberties of  _locked_  rooms on the premises." He looks over the boy who believes himself somehow on equal footing. "Not even a shirt, Alois Trancy?" he observes dryly. "How many rules do you think you have broken just today?"

"Not enough," Alois spits, and Ciel sees the other boy slip his hand inside his blazer pocket.

Claude Faustus takes a few steps into the room, and now Ciel can clearly see their doom taking shape. There will be no way out of this one. There will be  _no way_. When it comes to the Headmaster, Ciel's ego has already collapsed into immobile fear vying for the easy, numb state of acceptance. It is becoming difficult to breathe. But Alois' presence is a hot iron in a room of frozen dreams and spiderwebs, and there is the tiniest voice that begs Ciel to cling to some kind of hope. But he cannot move.

"We have had a conversation, you and I, Alois Trancy," the Headmaster continues. "Do you remember? You were feeling extremely confident about your progress with the game of chess. And I wondered, where in this place would a former whore find such a fine chessboard?"

The boy with the charcoal hair blinks. Alois had never told him of this confrontation, but as Ciel's eyes travel the millions of miles from the dreaded demon to his savior, there is no denial in his expression nor his stance. If anything, there is a twinge there, at the edge of the rising wall of fury, that pierces the indomitable will in the wake of learning his own misstep in a game that the Headmaster has clearly been playing for...

_Weeks._

Ciel remembers the pattern of cracks on the ceiling over his bed-the concentric circles within circles that spiral around a fixed axis-Invisible, intangible, but strong. He feels dizzy, staring at the web in his mind's eye and it takes too much effort to draw even one breath.

"I told you that the time and place was already chosen, Ciel."

Alois turns to glance back at him. He must be able to see the death in his one good eye.

"Don't fucking listen to him, Ciel. He doesn't have any magic. He's just a perverted old man who likes to play head games. Ciel...remember your promise.  _We made a deal."_

With his blood pounding in his ears, Ciel suddenly notices how quiet it is in the library. Wouldn't Claude Faustus, the Headmaster, who was so proud of his manipulation of  _formality_  want to make sure that there is no question of their guilt? If he had known, all this time, that he and Alois were sneaking into the library, then why walk in on them now when he could have done it at any time? And why not inform any of the other teachers and make a clean and obvious record of the children's indiscretions?

And then the truth strikes Ciel like a physical slap to the face.

_Freckleface..._

That poor, dead boy had figured out that Alois had framed him, and now he was dead.  _And Alois did not kill him..._

Robert's prophetic words come out of nowhere...

" _Boys die in this place..."_

Claude Faustus does not want witnesses. He could have brought any number of adults, and then he and Alois would have been taken into solitary confinement and questioned. Alois would be sent away to God knew where, and Ciel would be made to atone for his mischief and then...

Ciel's eye goes wide.

"Alois..." Ciel finds his voice with a tiny gulp of air, but it sounds like a child. It sounds like the squeak of a little boy who is watching his home and his entire family burn.

Alois turns towards him. He has heard the strangeness, and it has rocked him out of his indignance enough to pay attention to the words that could follow.

"...get out," Ciel slides off the chair, grabbing the chessboard for stability, and several pieces clatter over. Too late, Ciel understands completely. The Headmaster set Alois up. He will be blamed for the death of Freckleface, and any force against him now would be justifiable later...

_He is not going to send Alois away...he is going to kill him. Right now. In front of me!_

The Headmaster is not merely a pervert, he is a  _murderer_.

"Run...  _Run!"_ Ciel's command is a plea in a strangled, terrified voice he has  _never_  heard before. And that is the last of his air.

Alois' blue eyes widen. Perhaps the street savvy of his youth is what alerts him to danger just as Claude Faustus crosses the distance between them with impossible speed. His hand reaches out for the blond-haired boy, but Alois silently ducks, and, at the same time, thrusts something with all his might into the exposed chest.

One single heartbeat passes in a staccato of a hundred, paced in a marathon, and Ciel realizes that Alois has found himself a new weapon, secreted it in that pocket against his explicit order. Because there is now a pool of widening red blooming from the Headmaster's crisp white shirt.

Ciel's jaw falls open at the insanity of it all.

If Claude Faustus dropped dead right here, right now, as Alois had begged Ciel to allow him to do...if the author of this terrible woe was suddenly gone...

A whole dream of that life plays out in a single instant. It meant freedom in a way that Ciel had never even thought would ever be possible again. It meant  _life_  for him...and a life prison sentence for Alois if he was lucky. Would Ciel be able to someday tell the tale of the Headmaster's brutality? Could he prove the monster had killed at least Freckleface? Could Ciel free Alois from prison, and if he could, would there be anything left of this boy when he was able to? Was it worth it waiting all of this time to realize his mistake now?  _Was it worth it?_

A low chuckle from lips that should be burgeoning with bloody gasps arrests the moment.

"Oh, you are, in fact, a shrewd and capable little knight," Claude Faustus looks down. "Complete with a lance. Perhaps I did underestimate you..."

"What the shi-" Alois releases his hold on the makeshift dagger and hops backward as if the thing had become a serpent. "How the fuck are you still..."

Ciel grabs his arm with both hands and tries to pull him towards the door. His stomach is a mess of flight or fight and his vision is dimming. If he can propel Alois from this room ahead of him, then one of them may have a chance. He knows what Claude Faustus has come here to do, and Ciel never believed the dream of freedom. It is easy to let go of that. And now he knows for certain what he has always suspected...

It is a supreme effort to draw breath. He forces the air into his lungs.

"Alois, listen to me and run," he half mouths, half whispers. "Get out."

Alois has not figured it out yet. He turns back to their tormentor, staring at the red stain, the smiling yellow eyes that look not in the least bit troubled over the blood loss. "Ciel...he..."

"And now you understand, perhaps." Claude Faustus' grin is inhuman.

 _He_ is  _a demon..._

"Please!" Ciel begs, but now that Alois is getting over his initial shock and confusion, it becomes clear that his primary directive in killing Claude Faustus and getting Ciel out has not wavered.

"Ciel, go fucking wake up the entire goddamn building!" Alois does not pull his arm away from Ciel, but his feet plant on the floor and Ciel cannot move him, his chin comes up and so do his small fists.

The boy with one good eye shakes his head. This cannot happen.  _Claude Faustus is a demon and we cannot win. You cannot win!_

As if things could not be any worse, an icy hand reaches up from the depths of hell, burrowing its way into Ciel's lungs, and squeezes.

All breath stops.

_No, not now! I was supposed to be..._

Ciel falters, grabs the back of Alois's blazer. He needs to make this boy go. He  _must_  go! He has to live, and that is the only thought that the boy with the charcoal hair can hold onto in the shifting, moving nightmare. Alois has no idea what is happening to his precious Black King, so focussed is he on the danger in front of him, and Ciel cannot summon another breath to warn him of his imminent death. Claude Faustus, on the other hand, clearly sees him clutching his chest, and he smiles as only a demon can.

"I must thank you, Alois Trancy," the Headmaster begins, pulling the stub of a sharpened butter knife from his chest and further keeping the blond boy's attention. "At first I thought I should clear you out of the way when I realized you were laying hands on things that were not yours. But, as it turns out, this is so much better. Nothing else truly seemed to matter to him, you see, and Ciel was harder to break than the others. But you are an eyesore, and you should disappear. Once that happens..."

Alois doesn't wait. He grabs the nearest books, one in each hand, and throws them at Claude Faustus before he launches at the man with a vehement and quiet oath...

"I will fucking  _kill_  you..."

Ciel's hand pulls forward as Alois leaves his grasp. He stumbles. There is a madness creeping up inside, seizing his skull, forcing him to watch even as the air is strangled out of him.

_Alois is going to die..._

That is something he can no longer stop.

_I should have listened to him. I should have left this morning when there was at least a chance, and if nothing else, I would have died in the cold first..._

When the blackness claims Ciel's consciousness, Alois' golden hair in the candlelight is bouncing, moving...

_I never...I never told you..._

But it is too late.

And the rest is silence.

(to be continued...)


	13. Crawling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the author is merciless to her readers and her poor protagonist...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All I ask is that you read the chapter all the way to the end...

 

* * *

"Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great."

- _The Prince,_ Niccolo Machiavelli

* * *

**Chapter 13: Crawling**

" _Good evening, my lord."_

_Ciel frowns at the swallow-tailed butler who smilingly raises a teapot to eye level and makes a ridiculous show of the pour in a high arc that dramatically fills the small cup without spilling a drop-a circus act for buffoon nobility._

" _I told you not to call me that," he snipes, annoyed, as he nevertheless takes the cup when it is offered. It is impossible to not to lift the slivered edge of the china to his nose and bask in this aroma, however. How long has it been since he has had_ good  _tea?_

" _My apologies, young master." The butler smiles as Ciel's face sours even further at this address. "Your highness, then?"_

" _Enough." The boy with the one good eye does not want anything unpleasant to intrude upon his first taste of real tea in so long. With one sip, his expression softens. Not to bliss, exactly, but he feels far more prepared to face the day or, as the lack of light from his chamber window would indicate, night._

" _You are late, Sebastian."_

_The butler places the teapot delicately upon the service tray and steps back, but his crimson eyes glitter in the glow of…a candle, perhaps? There is suddenly too much meaning in those depths._

" _On the contrary, young master, I am afraid that_ you  _are the one who is late."_

" _Rubbish," Ciel tosses off, casually, "If I am the master, then I decide when I am on time and when you are late."_

_There is nothing strange about this interaction between servant and master. It is ordinary. Routine. Because, surely, he has lived like this every day of his life. Or has he? This tea…_

_He looks into the amber depths, and a reflection is caught on the shimmering surface: A boy with a surgical eye patch and fear…fear plastered across every line of his face._

_When he blinks, the emotion is gone, and he is just Ciel Phantomhive…_

_But he thinks he remembers something in the gloom. A bitter taste, gasping on an ocean of blood, his body turning traitor, sinking to a cold floor and…_

_Images of strangers in a dreamlike haze assail him. One of them is a grey-haired septuagenarian, leaning over him, shining a light in his eye..._

" _Who was the old man, Sebastian?"_

" _That would be the doctor, young master. He was called to your side when you took ill."_

" _Ill?"_

" _It seems that your asthma made a spectacular return. For several hours, you hovered over the brink between life and death." The information is delivered much in the way that one would relate the weather._

_Ciel scoffs. "That is patently ridiculous. I have not had an asthma attack since I was a child. Not even the fire that incinerated my home could…"_

_He pauses._

_The cloying smell of smoke burns his nostrils. He coughs up tea, and while it is intensely embarrassing, the vision of his room on fire is far more problematic. Because this has never happened. There simply was no fire. This sudden, racing fear is a figment of his imagination…_

_A lancing agony shoots through his right eye. It bores into his skull and brings the conflagration directly into his mind where he can no longer escape…_

_The gentle hand on his wrist, pulling the palm from his face, banishes the terror, but not the image._

" _Young master…"_

_The voice is full of compassion, and Ciel swats it away._  Honestly, a servant who is too familiar is nothing but a nuisance!

" _Do not touch me so freely," he snaps, trying to still his racing heart as he puts his tea cup on the side table and leans back into the pillows, rubbing his face. He is sweating. There is something even more awful, more horrifying than a fire pressing at the edge of his consciousness, and he is fighting it. None of that has any power. This peace, this tea-this is the only reality he will accept._

" _And the boy? The…the large, oafish thing who was breathing all over me?"_

" _Ahh, that was your classmate, Robert. He made it his solemn duty to see to it that you were not disturbed while you were convalescing. He was rather vigilant, as well." Sebastian carefully picks up the discarded tea cup and places it alongside another tea cup on the service tray._

Two tea cups.

_The boy with the one good eye makes a sound of annoyance. The brief memories of the old man and the hovering boy are nothing but seconds captured in time, frayed and blurred as if they had been pounded against the cobblestones and left to wash away into the gutter. The old man had a thick white moustache and a stiff collar. The boy was too close…his breath, unpleasant. Unfamiliar._

" _I do not care how vigilant he was, I do not want him near me again, is that understood?"_

Was the second tea cup supposed to be for that boy?

_But the butler does not answer. When Ciel turns his attention to him to truly scrutinize this servant, he finds that his chest is aching. There is something missing._

_There is a room with books. A library…_

_He runs from that image. It is laced with pain, regret… and so his mind pushes open doors to a courtyard. And in it, a statue…_

_Staring at him under the light of a full moon._

_This servant in front of him is no servant of his parents…_

" _I saw you before. You were inspecting the statue of St. Sebastian."_

The statue…at a home for orphaned boys...

_The butler does not respond, but his expression holds the feeling of one who is waiting…waiting impatiently._

_Sebastian…_

" _It_ is  _you…" Ciel breathes, but he does not hear the actual words leave his lips. The man in the servant's clothes bows nonetheless, his right hand to his heart, and black wisps of hair falling forward to obscure his face._

" _Then I am dreaming…all of this?"_

_The figure does not move from his prostrate position even though Ciel's frustration mounts._

" _Where are you!"_

" _Where I have always been."_

" _That is not an answer." Ciel states angrily. "I have done nothing but call for you. What is your purpose, exactly?"_

" _To fulfill your fondest desire."_

_The heat that floods Ciel's cheeks is from a blazing fury that has finally begun to climb from roots quietly embedded in his heart. "Then you have no purpose, for you have done_ nothing  _for me!" And he wishes, ardently, that he had kept the bloody tea cup so that he could have something to smash._

Two teacups.

" _Why did you give me_ that  _address?" he continues, remembering the card that had been pressed into his hand once upon a sunny last day._

_Sebastian finally speaks. His white gloved hand slides from his chest as he stands. Instead of a conciliatory tone, his response is maddeningly challenging: "Why have you not endeavored to find out?"_

" _I do not have to explain any of my actions to you. If your purpose is to fulfill my fondest desire, then fulfill it and be done!"_

_The servant's hands gently, reverently, pick up the second teacup. Without having even touched it, Ciel knows it is cold._

" _Young master, do you even know what your fondest desire is?"_

_The boy with one good eye balks. His gaze is drawn to the teacup._

I know who the missing guest is…

" _I told you, I am not the one who is late…" Sebastian's voice is almost pitying._

...Alois Trancy

Jim Macken

"No!"  _He shuts his eyes, presses hands to his ears, but he is already inside himself. There is no escaping reality for long._

I was in the library with Alois. He won the chess match, and then the Headmaster refused to die.

_Reality is worse than any nightmare his feverish brain could concoct._

" _What would you give, Ciel Phantomhive?"_

_For what? What would he give to escape the Headmaster? What did it even matter if Alois was dead? What did anything matter if he had felt that sun for a few scant weeks and then realized he could never have it again? There is nothing left to protect, not even his own bloody_ pride,  _if Alois is truly gone_ _._

" _Give him back to me, and I will give anything you require!…" When he pulls his hands away from his face to entreat that enigmatic saint, he sees Sebastian place the tea cup back on the service. He turns his body away from the boy with one good eye._

" _Sebastian!"_

_The fine room that he has always (never) known begins to melt like thin paper in a cold, November rain. The colors run down the wall, and the window disintegrates, leaving only the darkness-the inevitable and never-ending, unrelenting night…_

* * *

Ciel gasps awake.

He does not know where he is, and the panic begins to rise. He coughs, and then coughs again, fire burning his lungs, his one good eye searching for some kind of familiar guidepost to orient his movements.

There is a large rectangle outlined by pale light about ten feet away. It is not bright enough to lend any true shape to the room he is in, but it illuminates enough for him to know that the space is mostly bare and he is laying on a cot. Ciel grips the covers, cold sweat on his brow. He can breathe, yes, but each breath feels as if it has wandered through an arid desert for months with his mouth full of burning sand.

And then it comes to him. He is in solitary confinement in St. Sebastian's Home for Boys. He has never been in it before, of course, but he has heard stories.

_I am in hell…_

And then:

_Where is Alois?_

The final moments of consciousness replay over a background of a steadily racing heart. The Headmaster who  _would not die;_ Alois' murderous promise, charging into a battle he could not possibly win…

The boy with the sweat-slicked charcoal hair rips the covers from his body. He coughs and sits up and nearly falls off of the thin mattress. Cold fingers slide over the rough cloth, pulling himself upright. If he is in solitary, then there will be a reckoning. The Headmaster, the professors,  _someone_  is going to be at the end of this, and there will be questions asked of him, and he will be expected to make answers.

_What about my question? Where is Alois?_

_He is dead. They are going to bring me to his corpse and ask me what I have done that it has come to this._

"Ciel?"

The boy with the one good eye freezes. The voice is not Alois, not the Headmaster, none of his professors. It is not a voice he loves or hates, but it is a thin thread to whatever burning husk of a world awaits for him outside these walls.

"Robert…"

There is a bit of movement and then a clatter. A small square of light from inside the outlined rectangle opens. It causes the boy to fall back and shield his eye, unable to clearly see anything for the brightness.

"You should lay back down. There's nothing you can do running around, and you're still coughing."

The heel of Ciel's right hand goes into his good eye. It pushes at the lid, the pressure making him see strange shapes and spots. It hurts, but it is necessary. He must not fall completely to pieces. He must somehow gain answers before he is trapped.

"Why…why are you here?" he hears himself asking, though it is not the question he needs to have answered.

"Because I kissed arse to be here." There is a slight pause. "And because I'm the only boy tall enough to see through this bloody door window." The sound is clearer now that the barrier between them is reduced. In a few seconds, Ciel can hazard a glance towards the opening and beholds not much more than Robert's chin, a gaze from across the plains of his cheek since he is obviously balancing on his tiptoes to see in through the scanty aperture.

Ciel coughs.

"Get back on the bloody bed, you complete moron. Do you really want to die?"

_Yes…_

But he does not say it aloud.

Breathing is manageable. The problem is the dust. The room is used sparingly, a legend, really, to Ciel's peers, but time in this room could never be a harbinger of good things. His legs feel like rubber and he misses Alois so much,  _misses him_ with his bones, but his heart is being forced down by a numbed and calculating mind that, thankfully, takes control.

"How long…have I been here?"

"About four hours. Hurray for you. The doctor said you were out of danger and expects you to make a complete recovery."

That doctor was so bloody wrong…

"They left me here to keep an eye on you, because they want to make sure you live. Lots and lots of questions. Boys are dead, but you already know that."

Ciel cringes. He wants to climb back onto the cot, pull the sheet over his head, and join them. But…

"Alois? Where is he?"

Silence.

"Robert…"

"What will you give me," the boy begins, deadly serious.

Ciel's flesh creeps. "For what?"

"Are you daft? For information, clearly. You really have lost your wits."

Ciel's fear begins to cool, harden, become the mask that he remembered once upon a time. If he is a prisoner, if Alois is truly gone, then the only person who holds him bound is the Headmaster. Only him. Not this lump of breathing jealousy.

The boy swallows a cough. He is  _not_  this weak, not before this bully whom he spurned for far longer than he had belonged to  _anyone_.

"The one who has lost his wits here is you," Ciel begins. He pushes past the rubbery shudder of his legs to a standing position, turns his head to that lighted rectangle of a door frame, and takes a step. And then another. "You think you have played the game admirably," he continues. "You think you have maneuvered me into a position where I  _need_  you. That you can get me to bargain away whatever I have left and somehow score a victory over Alois."

"That's basically it, yeah." Robert is straining to see the figure he knows is coming towards him from the darkness, and his tone is not quite as confident as it was a second ago.

"Well, then you will be disappointed. I have nothing left to barter. You would do better to simply tell me what I want to know and perhaps get into my good graces in that manner."

Robert laughs unpleasantly. "Listen to you. Who do you think you are? You're not the little king of this place, Ciel. In fact, you are less than slave right now. You must've really pissed off the headmaster to get tossed in here the second the doctor said you would live. You don't have any choice but to deal with me if you want to know where your precious crazy boy is."

In spite of the cauldron of fatigue and terror still churning at the core of Ciel's soul, the empty places suddenly fill with a burning rage. With both fists he throws himself at the door, and his own negligible physical weight is born forward with the heavy load of his guilt. The result is a sound far louder and resonant than his would-be jailer had anticipated, and Ciel hears him fall back from the door with a gasp.

Ciel's satisfaction is limited.

" _Tell me where Alois is!"_

"Jesus Christ, you bloody little tyrant! He's dead, all right? How does that feel? Good enough for you? His neck is bloody  _broken_  because he decided to go full fisticuffs with the goddamn Headmaster!"

Ciel freezes. His one good eye stares into darkness, his fists still against the door. He clenches them until his nails dig into his palm. This pain…this pain feels good. If he can focus on it entirely, then he can perhaps turn away from the ripping sound of the cleaver shredding his heart to pieces.

"No…I do not believe you," he whispers, but he recalls a man who would not die and a boy who would never ever give him up. Never. Not if he had breath in his body. And if that was the case…

"Then don't believe me," Robert spits out, but it is with far less a tone of victory than one would expect from a peasant who has just toppled a king with a single phrase.

Ciel slides down the door. He feels splinters piercing the flesh of his hand, and it is pleasant in its own way. The boy with the one good eye remembers the slouched socks and that perpetually unkempt appearance. Alois had the warmest arms, the most unrepentant smile. He gave a damn about nothing, and he could have lived through anything.  _Anything_. Except falling in love with Ciel.

Robert has given up trying to stand on his tiptoes. He cannot see the prisoner directly below the window anyway, and so he crouches down, separated from the other by only a few inches of wood.

"Ciel?"

But the boy with the charcoal hair says nothing. He leans forward, arms on the floor, and he buries his head in his hands. Escaping was impossible. He wants something to punish him. He would like to simply stop breathing, to make his lungs stop the way his heart has already stopped.

"Ciel, say something."

But there is nothing to say. Ciel had already feared this much before Robert's declaration. Hearing the words said out loud, however, is robbing him, quickly, of any desire to move again.

"Fuck it all," Robert says finally, disgusted. "Fine. No one really knows where Alois is."

It takes far too long for this turnabout to travel from Ciel's ears to his heart. There is an unexpected stirring and a muted thump. The boy blinks and heads away from the abyss ever so slightly.

"What?" It is a whisper with the last breath in his body.

Robert sighs loudly, frustrated that he is simply giving up his undeniably complete upper hand. "I said, no one actually knows where Alois is. Even the adults. Maybe the Headmaster knows. He said that Alois took a beating and then crashed through the library window to escape. Maybe he did. They're still picking up the glass and they boarded up the window. The grounds are being searched,  _again_." Robert pauses, and takes a breath. He is letting his victory go too easily, and the following words are an attempt to get some of it back. "You're going to be questioned, you know. The adults want to know how Freckleface died, where you two went, where that boy is now. Alois is not coming back from this, Ciel. When they find him—and they  _will_  find him-they are going to beat him and send him upriver, and that will be the end…"

But Ciel is still processing the notion that, perhaps, Alois is  _still alive_. Perhaps. But if the adults do not know where he is then that means one of two scenarios: either Alois is truly alive and is out of doors in the elements and likely wounded-an unpleasant predicament, but arguably the best-or the Headmaster has created the broken window story as a ruse to cover the fact that he has taken Alois someplace to use as leverage against Ciel in their personal little chess match. If that latter is true, then being dead would have been a more merciful end…

_The Headmaster, even if he is not human, has limitations. He must consider propriety and formality-the game he has been been playing from the start. He still has all of the moves on his side, but if Alois is not dead, then Faustus is taking a great gamble._

_Could I tell the adults_ everything?

His stomach clenches in a knot.

_No. I do not have enough. It would be my word against his, and if I gamble as much as the Headmaster, he may take retribution and Alois may die anyway. Or worse._

_Or worse!_

Ciel cannot think. His head and chest hurt. He lost a game of chess to Alois; how is he supposed to outwit the Headmaster here? How can he secure a future for either of them?

He cannot.

The coughing fit starts. He clutches his chest as overwhelming anxiety battles with complete numbness.

"Goddammit, Ciel, go back to bed. I'm getting the adults."

Time is running out.

* * *

The boy with the charcoal hair is hastily dressed by two others students. Once upon a time, he would have savagely retaliated against such foreign touches, but now, even while some inane chatter begins about the scars on his back, Ciel no longer hears them. A wall has closed so tightly around the core of his being that nothing can permeate it. There is a kernel of Ciel Phantomhive alive and connected to a grain of sand the color of sunny blonde hair. It lives only to know what has become of his most treasured person.

He coughs into a handkerchief, not his hand, because he is a good British lad.

The groundskeeper, Mr. Hollis, comes to fetch him. Ciel ignores him entirely, even though the man says a few things in a tone that expects a prompt answer—his first adult censuring for the trouble he has caused them all. But the boy with one good eye pays him no attention in the solitude of his walled castle, puts one foot in front of the other, and is finally standing in the Mathematics room, which has, ironically, become the place for his inquisition.

_How many times did I dread the end of this class…_

As if to punctuate the unpleasant memories, Claude Faustus' dark frame is the first body he sees. He, his math professor, Mr. Dawson, English teacher, and a couple others are seated at the front of the room on large chairs behind a barricade of student desks so that this feels like a court martial or a tribunal. He does not make eye contact with any of them, and he is thankful for the walls of indifference that give his legs strength enough to stand in the face of all of this.

_This is my fault. I brought this upon us, and there is no escaping damnation for it. Accept the punishment, but find out what has become of Alois._

Mr. Hollis says something to the men. Their gaze leads Ciel to believe that they are keenly displeased with him. The groundskeeper leaves, shutting the door with a note of finality behind him.

"CIel Phantomhive, this is an informal inquiry of the death of Edward Easter, and the whereabouts of Alois Trancy. Depending upon your answers, the board of trustees and Scotland Yard will be included in the investigation. Your full cooperation is expected. Do you understand?"

_If only they would be included…_

The boy with one good eye takes a breath. He looks up at his math professor turned judge and answers. "I understand."

The adults seem to relax slightly. All save Claude Faustus. He sits like a spider in his web, unchanging-watching and waiting. Ciel knows that if he meets that gaze, the walls he has constructed, impervious to the plebian mortals of the world, will crumble before him like a pack of cards.

"Good. Now then, what do you know of the death of Edward Easter? Give us any and all particulars that may help us determine how this extremely horrific tragedy came to be."

Ciel imagines how it happened. Poor Freckleface was likely at the top of the stairs, perhaps pouring his heart out to the Headmaster about the blond-haired maniac who had framed him. Maybe Claude Faustus feigned concern for this put-upon student. In his mind's eye, Ciel sees the instant that the inhuman hand reaches out and pushes, a look of surprise upon the boy's face as he tumbles backward down the steps. Ciel considers the force of his fall, the sturdiness of the staircase, and the fragility of Freckleface, who was often bullied by the other boys because of his diminutive stature. Perhaps he was already dead by the time his head hit the third step…

_They are only asking me this thing because they have heard the rumors. They think Alois did it. They are not interested in the truth, only a likely culprit._

There is no due process in a place like an orphanage. They will pass judgment on the innocent  _in absentia_  if they see fit, unless they have a confession.

Ciel remembers the plan he was concocting in the tunnels below St. Sebastian's. He had fully resolved to take the blame himself. If he did that, here and now, then it would not matter quite so much where Alois Trancy was. The would not be able to ignore a confession. If he did that, it would lighten Alois' sentence…

_If Alois is even alive._

The confession is on his very lips…

And then Alois' visage appears in Ciel's inner sanctuary like a smack in the face. It has bypassed all of his defenses. That once beautiful, insane smile is a now a frown of incredulity, of righteous indignation. Alois was completely and predictably against the plan from the start.

It  _hurts_  to see that memory of Alois staring at him with utter bewilderment as he realizes he has just beaten Ciel in chess.

_He won_ , Ciel reminds himself.  _He beat me in a fair game. He should have had everything he wagered…_

It feels wrong to admit, now, to this crime he did not do. Nothing is going to change the outcome. To do this thing that Alois would have so vehemently opposed when all he wanted was…

_All he wanted to do was save me..._

Ciel coughs.

"Well?"

"I do not know anything."

A few of the men shift slightly, a tell that they are not hearing what they want to hear. The Headmaster, however, is smiling at him. Ciel does not need to see him to know it.

_What does that grin mean? Does it mean he has also killed Alois, or does he have him somewhere and he is daring me to do my worst?_

"You know nothing?" The incredulous voice asks.

"No. I saw his body, as did everyone else. I know nothing more."

The English teacher leans over to Claude Faustus and whispers in his ear. And then he tilts to Ciel's inquisitor and whispers again.

His examiner nods.

"Certain rumors have come to our attention. Easter, as you know, was found guilty of setting the fire in the third floor store room last month. The rumors contend that Alois Trancy, was, in fact, the author of that bit of mischief. What do you have to say to that?"

Ciel takes a breath.

"I would say that you may also hear a rumor that certain professors in this institution attempt to do their duties while under the effects of strong drink. I would also say that that you may hear a rumor that the cook's son is feeble minded and pisses in the garden because he cannot find the WC." There is some murmuring among the professors. "I would also say that you may hear a rumor that the statue of St. Sebastian in the courtyard is haunted."

The Headmaster ceases to smile.

It is a fruitless victory. Ciel, inside his wall, counts it to his side nonetheless.

"You spent a great deal of time with Alois Trancy, however. That is not a rumor," the English professor chimes in. "What do you know of the storehouse fire?"

"Its destruction was a shame. I often spent time reading there when I wanted solitude of a rainy day. Surely you have also heard the rumors of that? Why would Alois Trancy ruin something that I prized if he was fond of my company? And if I knew he had done it himself, why would I continue to tolerate his presence?"

The men grumble. They tilt their heads to each other. Finally:

"We will be the only ones asking the questions here, Phantomhive. We want to know what you were doing in the library with Alois Trancy two nights ago."

_Two nights?_

Ciel balks. Apparently, he had been unconscious for much longer than he thought.

"We were playing chess."

"I see. For how long have you been sneaking into the library to 'play chess' as you say?"

Ciel does not hesitate.

"Off and on for two months."

A few of his judges nod their heads. Likely, Claude Faustus had already told them that much. If he had lied to try to mitigate the damage, it would have cast aspersions on the credibility of everything else he had said to this point. Any chance of clearing Alois' name would have been for nothing.

"Very well," his math professor relents. "Where is Alois Trancy now?"

_Alive? Dead? A fugitive? A prisoner? This is_ my  _question, not yours!_

Ciel is in his castle. He has walls surrounding him to protect him from anything that can be said or done, but his eyes slide to the Headmaster's…

That yellow under twin panes of glass.

_Those spectacles are a show for the idiot masses—he likely has perfect vision and a perfect physique. This is the greatest game for him…_

"Sirs, I am unable to tell you where Alois Trancy is now. Ask the Headmaster—apparently he was the last one to see him…"

_Speak your lies now, Claude Faustus, or your truths. Say something,_ anything _, and give me an answer. Where is Alois?_

His English professor leans over his desk, hands clasped as if at prayer. "The Headmaster has already informed us that he went to the library to get a book and found you and Alois Trancy playing chess. The boy attacked him and you collapsed, apparently from a previously unknown health condition. Alois Trancy took several blows to the body before he turned and jumped out of the library window. The crash of glass alerted several boys and the groundskeeper who quickly approached the scene. Alois Trancy has yet to be located."

_He is alive, or he is a prisoner,_ Ciel reminds himself. When Ciel collapsed, Claude Faustus could have easily have knocked Alois unconscious and broken the window himself, stashing the senseless body in the stacks somewhere while he redirected the oncomers. It would give the search party a reason to not look indoors for the sunny-haired youth.

The English professor continues. "You and Alois Trancy similarly disappeared after Edward Easter's body was discovered. Where did you go, and why?"

Ciel considers withholding the truth of this. If the adults knew Alois' secret places, then they would search them, shut them down. All of the things Alois had collected there, and the sanctuary itself, would be lost. But Alois promised that he had bolt holes everywhere. If he was still alive, he likely had more...

_Unless he is already dead,_  Ciel reminds himself.

"Alois Trancy had discovered a way through one of the classrooms into the service tunnels under the school. That is where we waited until everyone had fallen asleep."

The faces of his professors prove that this is not something they would have imagined in their wildest dreams. No. Because they were raised to be Good British Citizens and to teach Good British Boys. They did not dream that one of them would be a former whore who had no use for anything proper. They could not comprehend that someone so young could think so far out of the nice little peg box prescribed for him and his indoctrination into civilised British society…

_Alois…I failed you so horribly…_

The professors mumble and talk quietly behind their hands, leaning into each other's ears. Ciel cannot catch what they are saying, but they are nodding and deciding and agreeing with each other. Claude Faustus listens but says nothing. He inclines his head at times, but that is all.

"Why did you sneak into the library to play chess? Most of us here are quite familiar with your intellect, Phantomhive. What were you hoping to accomplish by running from these questions and returning to the scene of a previous crime?"

Ciel has no response to this. What could he say? Ciel had lost his perspective and his wits. And now he has lost his heart. They would never know what that chess game meant to Alois, and now, neither would Ciel. What more proof did he need that everything was doomed from the beginning.

He shakes his head.

"Very well, Ciel Phantomhive, we will consider your answers in our inquiry. Before your punishment is announced for leaving the premises and unlawfully gaining access to the library, is there anything you wish to add to your answers or any testimony you would give in your own defense?"

Ciel's heart skips a beat.

One person here knows where Alois Trancy is. One person here has gotten away with murder, perhaps more than one. One person here deserves to be outed for his crimes. If Ciel points his finger, right now, towards those amused yellow eyes and calls Claude Faustus a criminal for his physical and sexual abuses upon his own person, would those eyes staring now in judgment upon him turn upon the true culprit? Could iron will keep him afloat as he weathers the storm this will cause? Or will it come to nothing? Would Claude Faustus murder Alois Trancy as retribution for Ciel telling the entire truth? This is where Alois would beg him to scream out the injustices that have been done…

_I cannot!_

This is the line he cannot cross. The gamble is too high: Faustus' prestige and power in the human world versus Alois Trancy's life. The Headmaster has far less to lose than Ciel does. If Alois actually managed to escape, then he is in the wind with wounds and winter coming on hard. If he truly crashed through the window and has run away injured according to the Headmaster's story, then it has been two days without adequate shelter, and Alois is either quietly dead beneath a grey sky somewhere, or he has found a way to London. If Ciel never sees him again, it is only his just due…

Ciel takes a breath. He does not look at that hated face.

"I have nothing further to say."

He bows his head to give the appearance of contriteness, but it is not altogether a sham. He does feel extremely regretful for what he has done, but it is not for spending time with Alois Trancy in any place on this earth, "unlawful" or otherwise.

Mr. Dawson takes a deep breath, as if this whole unpleasant business had been hard on  _him_. "Very well, we have determined that you will receive five blows from the paddle instead of ten in consideration of your health."

_In consideration of my health? What absolute horse shit._

Ciel makes a face, but it is to the floor. There is no justice in this world—there is no love, no hope, no joy. What it gives, it takes away three-fold. He thought he understood that when he woke up in the hospital almost four years ago, a patch over his eye, and the pitying looks of every doctor and nurse. Was it not made clear to him when that kind detective, Abberline, patted his hand and wept over it as if he was his own son and promised to write to him but never did?

But worst of all, in this moment that he is attempting to deflect the hopelessness and depression off of the wall that he has built inside, Claude Faustus stands up.

_Ah, oh, God, no. Let him not be the one._

"The Headmaster has reserved the right to deliver your punishment, Ciel Phantomhive, since his possessions were in your hands at the time you were found," his math professor says calmly.

Ciel squeezes his eyes shut. He barricades himself inside his core. He fills everything else up with emptiness—a cushion to soften the blows…

But he does not know if it can hold through this shame.

Claude Faustus looms towards him and produces from somewhere the instrument of his punishment. It is a 16-inch by 5-inch long flat paddle of wood with holes bored into it. Ciel has absolutely felt the sting of this hated tool of torment in these very hands, though never as punishment for any crime, real or otherwise.

"Five blows is sufficient," the demon finally speaks. "We would not want your health to take a back slide. But you seem hardy enough now."

Ciel's stomach begins to churn, and in spite of the wall, his chest hurts. He is breathing a little too quickly as the Headmaster moves to stand behind him.

_Behind him..._

"Lean forward and brace yourself on the desk, Ciel."

A hairline crack begins to form in the wall. This has happened before-A soft, knowing voice behind him in his ear, these exact same instructions, and then only shame and terror and pain follow. Now, in this room, he is exposed. All of these men, his professors, will watch a less scandalous re-enactment of possibly the most vile crime that can be visited upon a human child…

And they call it "discipline" and "justice."

"Ciel," his English professor says, almost humanely, "it will go easier if you simply comply and get it over with."

Claude Faustus has set this all up to destroy whatever shred of dignity he ever had left. And it is working.

They are all watching him.

Hands move. They grip the front of a desk in front of the professors, and he bows his head, but his shoulders are shaking uncontrollably.

He is going to scream.

The Headmaster's dark voice is near his ear. "If you wanted to play chess so badly, Ciel, you only needed to say so. I am always willing to be your oponent..."

WHACK!

It has hurt worse before, especially on bare skin, but with those eyes watching him be reduced, again, to a plaything, he cries out. It is the last vestige of his pride fleeing his lungs on that cry. He wants to drop to his knees and beg for mercy. He cannot do four more of these. He cannot bear their stares, their judgment. He cannot bear all of this and never know if he can see Alois' face again.

WHACK.

He shudders. His palms, now sweaty in the extreme, slide from their grip on the desk. He almost falls over, but barely catches himself at the last moment.

WHACK.

It is the sound of nails being hammered into his coffin…

This time Ciel falls to his knees, his back a curved umbrella to shield him from the raining shame. The walls he built are silently crumbling.

_Sebastian! Alois! Someone! Anyone! Take this away from me! Take it away! Tell me what to do, I have completely lost my way!_

"I say, Headmaster, perhaps three is sufficient enough discipline. Phantomhive has never run afoul of our regulations in the past. You said yourself that Alois Trancy was the poor influence over an otherwise obedient boy."

Tears spring, unbidden, into the only eye Ciel has left. He thought there could never be such an expression of sorrow or frustration left in his body, but apparently, he was wrong. His arms cross his chest, hands gripping his shoulders. He is a bug. A worm. He deserves this punishment. Alois Trancy's only crime was in loving him too much. He cannot think with the Headmaster behind him, with the physical pain and his mental walls just so much useless rubble.

_I do not know how to make it stop! Even if I call the Headmaster's bluff. Even if I try to believe that Alois can never be hurt by him again, if I say anything now, then the world will change, it will fall on me utterly, and I will not know how to crawl through it._

"Perhaps you are right, Mr. Dawson. I am fairly certain that with this and one more night in solitary, Ciel Phantomhive will be able to rejoin us as the bright and promising young man that he is."

Irony drips from every word like corrosive acid, but Ciel does not move. He is happy the blows have stopped. He is happy that the voice is moving away from him.

He is pathetic.

"Have no fear, Ciel," Faustus says in his kindest, most generous tone of voice. "This bit of unpleasantness is over, and things will return to the way they were. And, of course, you will not need to worry over losing your precious French lessons. I have already forgiven you."

Ciel feels dead inside.

_Nothing I say or do will make any difference. I am damned…_

* * *

Ciel is half carried back to solitary confinement. The hallway is as dark as his soul, as if every light has been figuratively and literally extinguished. Mr. Hollis as an escort on the return trip is actually quite gentle. It is pity—Ciel knows it on some level, but he does not care. He must look pitiable—a tear-streaked face with only one eye and a body that cannot stop shaking.

The boy with the charcoal hair watches the wooden boards move beneath his feet. There is shuffling outside his line of sight and then the voice of the oafish bully.

"Ciel!"

"What are you doing here?" Mr. Hollis says, testily.

"The doctor is in the parlor. He's just come to check up on Ciel, but he was going to get tea until Ciel came back. Crikey…"

The boy with one good eye sighs. Even Robert pities him. What a wonderful day this must be for him, to see the 'little tyrant' laid so low. Strange that he does not go straightaway to throw a celebration…

"Get out of me way," Mr. Hollis barks. "The professors said to put the boy back in the room."

"Jesus, old man. You're a real treat, aren't ya? Stop holding his arm like a sack of bricks. He almost  _died_  two days ago." Robert's breath is not candy-scented. It smells more like old meatloaf and hard cheese, but Ciel does not push him off when he takes his arm. There is an unsurprising amount of strength in it, and the punished boy has nothing left.

"You cheeky little shit." Mr. Hollis reaches out an arm to smack the big boy for his impertinence, but somehow Robert ducks it without losing his load.

"You've been drinking again. Christ, it's a wonder he hasn't fallen and cracked his skull. Let me get him in bed and you get the doctor."

The groundskeeper mumbles. "'S'posed to lock it meself."

"Oh, because he's gonna run away? Is that it?" Robert sneers.

Ciel concludes that the bully has gotten his way because the grumbling begins to recede, and he is maneuvered fairly handily into the darkness of solitary confinement and then a bit further to the bed. His legs bump against the cot frame, his cue to drop to a seated position. No sooner does he do so, however, then two meaty arms wrap around him in a hot embrace.

"Ciel, Ciel…"

The one good eye flies open in shock. The restriction is as good as being tied up with twine, and a new panic assails him.

Robert's voice is a combination of longing and desperation. "Ciel, whatever they did to you, whatever is gonna happen, I'll be here. All right? I can…I can take his place."

_What?_

His _place…Alois…_

"I'm not a complete psychopath. I know how all of this works. I won't get caught and I won't leave you alone. No matter what happens, no matter what he does, I'll be here. I don't know how to tell you anything. You're a fucking prat, goddammit, but I want you to  _look at me!"_

The last few words are uttered in a harsh whisper. There is limited time for this artless, pawing confession, but Ciel thinks he may be sick in a moment. Whatever strength is left to him becomes employed in trying to gain some freedom from the tense hug, the sloppy wet tears on his neck.

"Get…get off me…" Ciel breathes.

"Ciel, just let me. Just let me.  _He_  drove you to this craziness. Look what it's done to you!" Robert gives in to the other boy's increasingly desperate escape attempts , releasing his hold enough to slide his hands down to grasp Ciel's thin arms just above the elbows.

_How can this be happening?_ Ciel stares at the soaked face of this boy who used to throw stones at him.  _As if it was not enough that I be mocked and tormented in front of the professors by the very demon who has taken all hope, but now I am expected to fall directly into the arms of this indelicate pig?_

"Get away from me," Ciel spits out, shuddering. "Never…never touch me again."

Robert's expression contracts from lovelorn to annoyed. "That. That right there. You act like you don't want to be touched, like you're too good for me or anyone else. But you  _aren't_. You let that whore wiggle all over you, and he couldn't even fucking  _read_. What did that bastard have that I don't have?"

_Golden sunlight. Candied lips. A mischievous smile. Slouched socks and stolen keys. Tears and laughter and a heart so big big big that it killed them both._

And then reality truly begins to set in.

He is never going to see Alois Trancy again. Not in this life. Never.

Tomorrow, the Headmaster will come for him and he will become the dutiful little doll that he has been broken to be. That is his life now. And then, when the Headmaster has decided that his fun has ended, Ciel will be discovered at the bottom of the stairs, his neck broken, and they will bury him beyond the grounds where all the other dead boys are buried because there was no kind person to give them a nicer dirt prison for all eternity.

And thus will end the short and somewhat unremarkable life of Ciel Phantomhive.

But he would die before he let this bully insult the one good thing that had ever happened to him.

Robert lands on the floor on his arse, exceedingly surprised; like a Herculean trial, Ciel has somehow managed to push him off the bed.

"Say one more thing about Alois Trancy, and I will  _kill_  you."

Perhaps his tear-streaked face and the malice in his one good eye is what finally gives him away. Without pride and without masks, Ciel is just simply…

"Jesus," Robert says from the floor. "You really  _loved_  him…"

Hearing it said out loud is finally too much to bear. Alois Trancy will never know those words were once on his lips. Instead, his most hated rival…

Ciel drops his face into his hands and cries.

His whole body shudders. He feels a hand on his shoulder, but it is soon gone. When the doctor finds him, Ciel is beside himself. His weeping draws shuddering, gasping breaths and he convulses violently. The doctor tries to talk to him, but the boy with the one good eye has closed off everything. The touches make him snap, throwing out one arm and then a second, until the voices of others emerge from the grief-stricken haze and his wrists are held down.

Something sharp penetrates the skin of his arm, drawing a moan of pain, and then, gradually, he becomes heavy. Muscles release, his chest burns, but he feels as if he is dying and that is all right by him. He does not resist the pull into a drugged sleep.

* * *

_Burning Ash._

_Ciel slides his hands through it, feels the juxtaposition of biting heat and soft, feathery grey clumps. He makes a fist, grips nothing but the charred remains of his past, of his present and future, and looks out upon the desolation._

_The sky is an overcast reddish brown, and as far as his one good eye can see, there is nothing but the acrid remnants of some world that had once been solid and full of sun. He could lay here and decide to never move again, but even this nothingness is too uncomfortable. When he pulls himself to his feet, rivulets of the powdery ground burrow their way into his nostrils and he coughs._

I am dreaming.

_The thought comes as a thick, muffled voice clotted by so much despair._

So, is this where it will all end?

_The red embers burn his bare feet. They motivate him to move sluggishly away from one smoking pile to another. It is only a nuisance now since the rest of him feels indifferent to death. There is no real direction to his steps-he simply puts one foot in front of the other, waiting for the moment when this all simply...stops._

" _Ciel..."_

_The boy with one good eye blinks. It is strange to hear this voice so familiar and yet so completely gone._

" _Father?"_

_When he turns his head, he sees a broken chair, charred by the flames that have reduced everything else to the soot constantly stirred up with his passage. But there is something in that chair...something blackened and crumbling._

" _Ciel, why are you still here?"_

_The boy halts. The question means nothing, and he does not want to see this. He knows what this is. Unpleasantly, an emotion begins to push through the thick blanket of indifference that he had pulled around himself like a cocoon since the destruction of the wall and his last safe space, even in his own head._

_The emotion is Shame._

" _Stop," he mumbles, turns away, tries not to remember the handsome, congenial, perfect man who was his father. Such a smile won him every heart, even this wretched, doting son. Vincent Phantomhive would spend hours designing and testing new toys with him, until Ciel was so tired that he begged his papa to be able to go to bed, until his Father was slowly nodding off on the floor of their London townhouse like a toddler himself. And then, with a gentle smile, his mother would pick him up, shake his father's shoulder with infinite tenderness, and put them both to bed._

_That happy memory became all of this death._

" _Stop, stop!" Ciel begs. He squeezes his eyes closed and moves in the opposite direction. There is no reason to reform these ashes into a life that is gone forever, that he cannot have. And even if he could, after everything that has happened in those three years..._

_He gasps, chokes on embers, and his footfalls become heavier, faster. He wants to outrun the shame. This son is a disgrace. He is mangled, tainted, and has fallen completely into darkness._

" _Sebastian?" He calls. "Sebastian! Take me out of this place! Take me out, I order you!"_

_As if in answer to his plea, a bright disk of light, like an expanding sun, irises open in front of him. Ciel stops abruptly and throws a hand up in front of his face. But it is not the enigmatic saint butler with the swallowtail coat who steps out..._

_The boy's mouth opens._

" _Alois?"_

_The grin is unmistakable. Still dressed in his blazer sans shirt, Alois Trancy's first act is to casually kick around the ash that was Ciel's whole life like a simple pile of autumn leaves._

" _Wow, this place is truly a shit hole," he remarks as he takes in the scenery. "They drug you up with enough to knock out a horse and you can't come up with anything better? Why can't you just dream of something decent for a change, like an unminded candy store or a sunny fucking valley?"_

_Ciel's arm reaches out to grab that blazer, to hold this vision, to make it real!_

_But his arm passes through Alois completely. He stares at his palms, willing them to work, as if he can change everything about this whole situation to suit what he wants the most. He looks up quickly at Alois, whose characteristic grin has lost its mirth._

_Ciel does not like that look. It is too...sad, too sane._

" _Why can I not touch you?"_

" _You know why."_

_Ciel shakes his head, but not because he does not understand. When did he become such a complete_ coward? _When had he allowed life to ruin him the moment it had meaning? If only he had pushed Alois away when they first met. If only he had never known an emotion that he wanted to claim, to keep, forever..._

" _Sorry. I thought maybe I could fake it for a few more minutes," Alois apologizes far too sincerely. "The truth is, I'm dead, Ciel."_

_The boy with one good eye can only stare._ This is not real. He said it himself. I am dreaming...

" _You_ cannot  _be!" he chokes. He wants this to be a joke, a really horrible, poor way for Alois to get the upper hand. But even Alois is not that cruel, at least, to him. Any moment now he will crack a grin, and the landscape will change. Maybe Ciel will be able to make that sunny fucking valley, if Alois is so keen on it. Perhaps he can manage a candy shop..._

_But Alois only looks more contrite._

" _Your big fat brain already knows I'm dead, Ciel. You've run through, like, twenty scenarios in your head that all end this way. You used to_ like  _to be so bloody right." He tries to laugh a bit at the end, but it comes out as terribly sad. And the hand that he reaches out to perhaps touch his stunned counterpart hesitates. It drops to his side._

_They cannot touch._

_Alois is already leaving him..._

_Ciel is speechless._

" _But, hey. It's not all completely bad," Alois begins again, half biting his bottom lip, an excited little glimmer in those dead blue eyes._

How?  _Ciel wonders._  How can this be anything but the worst possible thing? The only reason I have been holding on at all is for hope. And you have just destroyed it!

_Alois turns around and reaches his hand toward the light. "Come on. I told you that you had to meet him at least once, didn't I?"_

_A little boy of less than ten years with messy brown hair and giant brown eyes peers sheepishly at him. Hesitantly, a small palm takes Alois' strong hand, and the elder boy pulls him all the way out with a giggle. He stands the child in front of himself, showing him off, and grins with more joy than Ciel has ever seen. It makes his heart hurt._

" _Ciel, this is Luca. My little brother."_

_One blue eye travels from the shorter boy to the taller, back and forth. No matter how he looks at it, can they really be related? Alois' hair is blond and his eyes are a slight aqua blue. This kid is brown-haired and brown-eyed. Perhaps it is the shape of the mouth or the set of the eyebrows that gives their mutual heredity away._

_Luca_ _..._

" _Remember when I said that I would never see Luca again? That I was going to Hell?" Alois kind of laughs. Ciel hates it. "Guess what? Turns out I'm not going to hell after all. Isn't that great? Luca came to get me himself. He's been waiting all this time." Alois flops his arms down, over the shoulders of his little brother, who immediately begins to grin. "Isn't he so damn cute? Luca has been waiting for_ me  _all this time. Such a great kid."_

_CIel is trapped between his anguish and a growing jealousy._

Alois is mine!  _He mentally claws at the gentle visage of brotherly love, of such obvious and tangible affection. His love was just as real, even if he could never..._

_But that was the problem, was it not?_

" _Alois," Ciel breathes, because he wants to tell him to stop, but the words are choking in the back of his throat and his feet and legs are burning from the embers. And from truth._

" _Oh! I told Luca that the first thing that we're gonna do is read Treasure Island together. I mean, I bet they have books in Heaven. That would be_ your  _Heaven, wouldn't it, Ciel? A great big library where you can just sit for hours and hours and do nothing but read alone?"_

_The boy with one good eye shakes his head._  No. This is not happening...

" _I figure Heaven will make up for any problems I still have with reading, but I was really glad for all of those lessons you gave me. Luca thinks I'm quite the educated dandy now. Isn't that rich?"_

" _Alois!" Ciel can hear no more of this. He tries, futilely, to grab a wrist that is so possessively hanging on to this picture of absolute innocence. He_ hates it _. But his hand falls through and he is left with nothing but ugly words born out of grief and desperation and jealousy. "I did not give you permission to die! You cannot leave so easily and take everything that you swore was between us! I will not let you!"_

_Alois' expression changes slightly to surprise and then he sighs, standing up straight._

" _There is a little left of you in there, maybe. That's good."_

_Ciel draws himself up to his full height to meet that stature._  I am not so beneath you!

" _Alois, you cannot leave. Not now._ You  _at least, would never give up. I_ cannot  _accept it."_

_The boy with the blond hair chuckles, but there is a dark resignation in it that is terrifying. "I didn't give up, Ciel._ You  _did."_

_Ciel's lips part slightly, anger escaping in a rush like a gasp. Because his heart and his head have both been fatally stabbed._

_He is not wrong._

_Alois' spectre sighs. He leans down to the boy. "Go ahead, Luca. I've only got a few more minutes anyway. Just wait for me a little longer, okay?"_

" _Okay, Brother Jim!" Luca's smile defies everything in this world. He turns and jumps up into Alois' arms for a big hug. His unjudging brown eyes become downturned half moons of sweetness as he waves to Ciel, his big brother's good friend, and then he trots into the light and is gone to Heaven, where earnest children deserve to go._

_A place Ciel will clearly_ never  _see..._

" _Aloi-"_

" _Listen, Ciel. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said it like that. You are you, and you did everything you could to survive. What was it you said to me that one time? You said something like you would never begrudge me for the things I had to do to survive, and I feel the same way about you. There was all this complicated stuff, and I just didn't_ get  _it. I wanted to help you, I was obsessed with it. I made choices too. I'm not mad at you for any of this.."_

_Ciel cannot handle these words. They are too kind. He does not want kindness. He does not know what to do with compassion. He would rather have Alois hating him, cursing him, maybe, for the decisions_ he  _made that brought him to this utterly pathetic end. Without punishment, how could Ciel ever atone?_

" _You...you can't..." He swallows, but his pride is gone._

" _Listen, I'm dead, and I can do anything I damn well want, which includes forgiving you and the world." He throws up his hands and spins around once. "Whatever. It's over. I didn't want it to end, no, but there's not much I can do about it. But..." He takes a deep breath and seems to consider his next words._

" _What?" Ciel asks impatiently, trying to pull the sword into his heart enough that it can just simply stop beating. "Do not spare me. You are right. You can say anything you 'damn well want' to me and I will have to accept it."_

_Alois purses his lips. He takes a deep breath, fills his cheeks with air like a balloon, and then lets it out, noisily. "I wasn't going to say it but..." Alois looks at the light and then back to Ciel. "When I died, I mean, the very second that my heart stopped, this big light appeared and I suddenly just...understood everything. Well, not everything, really, but everything about me."_

" _And?" Ciel says impatiently, the tears beginning to form in his eyes. No matter how casually Alois refers to his death, each mention is a fresh tear._

" _I'm only going to tell you this because I want you to know the truth." He starts, stops. Deflates. "The truth is, I never got over Luca's death. Never. I carried on because my body was alive, but I just..." He winces, looking for the words. "There was all this_ guilt _, you know, that I let him die. And so, when I saw you there under that statue, suffering the bullies and everything else, I knew you were just like him-trying to pretend to the world that you weren't hurting so fucking much. So, I had to fucking save you."_

_Ciel bows his head._

_All along, he had guessed it might be something like this, but it never mattered. Luca was dead and he was alive, and Ciel was willing to accept that light and that love no matter...no matter..._

_But now..._

" _I loved you, Ciel, but I was fucked up. I loved you, but I think I made you my substitute Luca. Does that even make sense?"_

_To have the words ringing in his ears..._

_Ciel squeezes his eye shut._

" _Anyway," Alois breathes heavily, runs a hand through his golden locks. "I felt guilty once I realized it all. I came into your life like a fucking tempest and I pretty much wrecked everything. I know that now."_

_Ciel shakes his head. "Alois, I could have given that tempest purpose...but I did not..."_

_The other boy tosses his sunny locks to negate the defeat there. "Ciel, you are not weak. You're sad about me, yeah, but you are stronger than this. You can still do something. This isn't the end for you because you still have that great big brain," Alois encourages, but Ciel is beyond help._

But I have lost my heart...

_He cannot go on like this. As a farewell, it is so sudden, so...so lacking in the weight it should have had. Even if Ciel was nothing, Alois meant_ so much _to him in the most fundamental way. This scene of their parting is absolutely wrong!_

" _Stay with me," Ciel whispers harshly. Tears drop from his eye. They spatter onto the embers, and a curl of smoke rises between them._

" _I can't." He breathes. "It's complicated, but I can't." Alois' voice is so kind..._

_Ciel looks up._

_And so this is it, then. This is the last moment to speak to a soul that had become the linchpin of hope and love. A spoiled child to the end, Ciel will demand too much. There is no pride in fear or in anguish. All he wants is the warmth he gave away too cheaply._

" _If there is a Heaven and saints and demons, then there are such things as ghosts!" Ciel begins, his voice taking on volume as it fills with despair. His logic is so tragically flawed, but he does not care. "I am begging you,_ do not leave me here alone! Give me at least your ghost. Haunt me! Haunt me forever!  _I will take any curse, any love, any feeble scrap. If anything was real in that world. If_ any  _of it was real, I beg you. I_ beg you!"

_He drops into the ash. He cries into the ash. He would have a shadow of Alois by his side if he could not have the real thing. There were so many words he wanted to say, so much he wanted to do. Once upon a time, he had dreamed of leaving St. Sebastian's Home for Boys and becoming a prince, but that concept became hollow when the Headmaster saw right through him and his secret doubts-when he proved that there was no escape from a lifetime of shame._

_Even if Alois could never hold him, kiss him, hug him again, even if all that was left was merely a candied scent in a place with no wind, as long as Ciel could experience it, he could suffer those last indignities. It would give him some peace to breathe his last with this soul watching over his bones..._

" _I do not deserve it, I know I do not, but I cannot go on. I cannot!"_

" _Ciel..."_

_The boy with good eye is groveling. His hands run through the ash, burn, and squeeze the shapelessness into just more shapelessness. It is as futile as his plea, but he does it anyway._

" _Please! Please, please. Please, Alois, I_ need  _you. I cannot do this alone! Even if I cannot see your spirit, I could make it for a short while if I could feel your warmth near me." He chokes out a painful laugh, "It would not be a tedious wait. Surely my time on this earth is not so much longer than yours." His hands release the ground. They smear his face, collect the wetness there. He is dirty, defeated-so very lost. His own voice is a foreign, pathetic thing._

" _I do not want to be alone anymore!_ I do not want to die alone."

_I love you!_

_Ciel coughs into his hands. He looks up, smears a soot-covered arm across his face..._

_Alois is gone._

_He is gone._

No!

_The boy doubles over. He grips his stomach, his chest. It is all gone. It has all come to nothing._

Sebastian, you bastard! You said your purpose was to give me my fondest desire! You are a liar! Find a gate to hell and go there! Burn as I burn, and be cursed!

_From the blistering air, above the sound of his weeping, Ciel hears a deep, sonorous voice._

" _Do you even know what your fondest desire is, Ciel Phantomhive?"_

_Ciel gasps as a hand and arm suddenly rip through the ashen ground as if some corpse, unable to rest, is reaching for one last chance at life._

_The boy with one good eye falls back from this vision out of a penny horror magazine and stares at the fingers that clutch at impotent air. There is something happening here. Ciel swallows, gets to his knees stupidly. He continues to stare at the arm that is trying fervently to pull its way out of the hot embers, and the boy's heart begins to pick up the pace._

" _Alois?"_

_He reaches forward, and digs his hand into the ground. There is no hope here, no, but there is something more stubborn than hope just out of reach. He scrapes and pools the ash away. He will uncover this body, no matter what it looks like. If Alois has consented to give him just a few more days..._

"Do you even know what your fondest desire is, Ciel Phantomhive?"

_Ciel stops digging. Something about this hand...is far more familiar than Alois'..._

_He sits back on his calves, ignores the fire, and looks up at the butler where the golden light once was. That porcelain white face, the red eyes, proof of his martyrdom, judge his every thought now, at the crux of Heaven and Hell._

_In this crucible of life._

" _What would you give to have Alois Trancy back?"_

_These words are real, and they promise things that Ciel is weak to possess, no matter how much he has has just cursed Sebastian's existence._

_Ciel breathes._

" _Would you give up your soul?" The apparition takes a step forward._

" _Yes," Ciel says quietly. "Yes!" He stands up. Is this what the entire horrible dream and its revelations have been leaning toward? Has Sebastian actually been a demon this entire time, only bent on stealing his soul before Claude Faustus? Has Ciel been so dense that he could not even see_ that  _much? Still, even if this figure in front of him now is Satan Himself in disguise, this one-eyed Prince is not afraid of this question nor its cost. What price could anyone put on the demolished thing called Ciel Phantomhive's Soul anyway? "Take it, if that is the price to have him back!" He demands._

_Sebastian is in front of him now, hovering as all adults have hovered over him, a black crow from the land of the dead. Ciel finally understands why the other boys were afraid of that statue, but he does not move nor flinch. He meets that red gaze imperiously, dares the creature to do its worst..._

" _It is easy for you to give up your soul," the smooth voice says quietly, the heat of the landscape fluttering his unkempt ebony bangs. "But would you_ save  _it?"_

_Ciel blinks._

Would I...save...my own soul?

His heart beats.

Would I...save it? For Alois? For...

_When Ciel looks down at the hand, he suddenly realizes why it is too familiar..._

My fondest desire...is one thing...

_Sebastian is waiting. This cheeky saint has some great nerve watching him weep this whole time..._

_Ciel takes a measured breath._

" _Yes," he responds._

_And then the white gloved hand of the butler sweeps in front of his chest and he drops to one knee, an infuriating grin on his face of victory, at last..._

" _Then, young master..."_

_Ciel braces himself. He reaches down and grabs the hand that is his own, and he pulls..._

_Heat and ash and light and power surge through him. The hand and arm emerge connected to a shoulder, and then a face is reborn from the fire..._

_It is Ciel Phantomhive..._

* * *

"Ciel...Ciel!"

The boy's eyes fly open as if he has just been born this very second. Everything is darkness with a slash of light. He cannot comprehend what is happening, but something is being shoved onto his feet. He can feel it, but barely. The drugs still have a grip, and he cannot make sense of the moment or why he can distinctly smell candied breath.

"Ciel! Thank God! We gotta go! Can you at least bear some weight?"

He breathes raggedly as he is pulled roughly to a sitting position. A soft but heavy warmth is around his shoulders-A sturdy blanket or quilt by the feel of it.

"No time, okay? I got your shoes on, and we're going, right now. If you fucking stop me, we may both die, do you get it? You lost that chess game, remember? You  _have_  to come with me, Ciel."

It is impossible. This is Alois' desperate whispering voice, but Ciel knows that Alois is dead...He is dead. Has the boy with charcoal hair finally gone all the way insane? Is this what it feels like to utterly lose one's grip on reality? But there is some strange strength in his arm, and he can lift it and grab this silhouette that keeps going in and out of the darkness, the light.

"Holy...okay, mmmbeep," the voice halts because his cheeks have been constricted.

Ciel blinks.

"A-Alo-"

His hand is grabbed by one much surer, and so much  _alive!_

"Yeah,  _yes,_ it's me, your fucking royal highness, and this is what we call rescuing the fucking princess. But we have to go, like...this very second."

But Ciel is still confused. Perhaps he is dreaming...or maybe this is a result of heavy drugging. He does not necessarily have to be insane...

And then Alois leans down and kisses him.

Oh, and he spares nothing. It is hot and sweet and full of his own unknown torment and longing...

There is no mistaking...

Ciel grabs the back of his neck and makes Alois give him a full reckoning for the lies of his terrible what ifs, and demonstrates to the blonde-haired boy a renewed purpose.

Alois had been in a hurry a second ago. Now he is Ciel Phantomhive's willing slave again because this kiss...because  _this..._

It is Heaven.

And time stops.

When  _Alois_ has to break the kiss, he knows something has changed. He hugs Ciel to his chest, stifling the painful gasp from his possibly broken rib, and squeezes this boy for dear life. And his life is  _so_  dear.

_I made it in time..._

"I swear, Ciel, I will never leave you again. I swear, I swear..." he mumbles, and the tears are going to come again when it is so  _inconvenient_.

"Alois..." The boy with the one good eye presses a kiss to his neck, and then he pushes away. His face is serious and he is slurring his words. The drugs. But he is obviously fighting through them as hard as he can. "Get me...up..."

The sunny-haired boy shudders as a spear of joy pierces him in all the places that he has let become tender and bruised for the sheer fact that Ciel is not battling him over stupid things and wanting to die. It is hard to tell in this light, but his eye is actually...

Commanding.

_How long has it been since I have seen that look? Too fucking long!_

"Yes, my lord," he half laughs. Alois stands up and grabs Ciel's arm, hoists it over his shoulder. They don't have much time, and the clock is ticking.

_Ho, shit. We may make it. We could actually live, or, at least, die together. Which wouldn't be so fucking bad..._

"Ciel, whatever strength you have in there, you have to help me."  _Because I'm hurt._ "And we're going to be going as fast as we can for a kind of long way."

Ciel nods. He does not question. He does not hesitate any longer. "Go..."

_Ciel Phantomhive, I fucking love you, and only you, until the end of forever! This is the White Knight's greatest move yet. Are you paying attention?_

They are leaving. Wherever Alois is taking them, it does not matter to Ciel. Alois Trancy is miraculously alive, and now, finally, so is Ciel.

(to be continued)


End file.
